A Universe Worth Living In
by Laura Schiller
Summary: A collection of New Who oneshots. 27. "Cover": Set between "The Rings of Akhaten" and "Cold War". Realizing exactly how old the Doctor is, Clara wisely decides to cut down on flirting.
1. A Universe Worth Living In

A Universe Worth Living In

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it."  
>- Emily Bronte, <em>Wuthering Heights<em>, Ch. 9

Amelia "Amy" Pond was thrilled to pieces by the way her wedding had turned out. Not only had she remembered the Doctor at last and thereby saved him from spatial and temporal oblivion, but he was taking her and Rory on a full-blown, intergalactic honeymoon cruise. Mayhem included. Duration unknown. The obliging TARDIS, which had never hosted a pair of newlyweds before, had provided the most gorgeous suite – a king-sized four-poster bed with an ivory silk quilt, enough candles to supply a church, and a white-tiled bathroom with a Jacuzzi big enough for two. Amy squeaked in delight and whirled around to beam at Rory. This was going to be _fun._

"Well then, Mr. Pond," she said, advancing on him with a swing of the hips that made her dress rustle. "Let's get down to business, shall we?"

The look on Rory's face made her stop short right in front of him. He did not look the least bit excited; in fact his pale, boyish features were every bit as grim as those of the Roman soldier he had once been.

"Amy … we need to talk."

Her heart sank. Much as she liked to joke about Rory being the submissive one, she still valued his respect enough that moments like these made her acutely uncomfortable.

"Can't it wait 'til the morning?" she pouted.

He shook his head. "No … this is important. I really need to say this." He held up his hands, struggling for words; in that familiar gesture, he was her boy again, and she felt a little better.

"The thing is … just now. When the Doctor came back. It was a great moment, yeah? Made us both happy. He's much too important to be forgotten."

"Course not!" she interrupted indignantly.

"No, let me finish. What I mean is … " He threw up his hands again, rolled his gray eyes up to the ceiling, and seemed to abandon any previous effort at being tactful. "_'Kiss the bride'_, seriously? Five minutes married and you're flirting with another man?"

Amy was not a natural redhead for nothing. She jammed her hands onto her hips and glared.

"That was a _joke_, Rory! Can't you take a joke? Or do you think just because we're married, you suddenly own me?"

"You've been acting like you own _me_ since we were kids, Amy. I wouldn't mind the reverse once in a while – no, hold on," as she was about to interrupt again. "I don't care so much about you kissing other people. It's your job, after all. No, but why does it have to be the Doctor?"

"Ugh, here we go again!" She rolled her eyes. "You've always been jealous of him."

"Is it any wonder if I am?" Rory almost never raised his voice, so when he did, it really meant something. "You've been obsessed with the man since you were seven. You made me dress up as him and eat bloody fish custard and as soon as he came back – fourteen years late – on the night before our wedding – you ran off with him without even saying goodbye. _And_ you tried to kiss him. He told me so, at the bachelor party."

"Oh, all right, so I wanted a bit of adventure before settling down in armpit-of-the-world Leadworth. So shoot me!"

"You thought our marriage was going to be boring?"

Amy flushed guiltily, but was too angry to apologize. "Not if we spend it like _this,_ it won't," she snapped, sitting down on the edge of the bed and pointedly avoiding Rory's accusing eyes. Of all the inconvenient times to feel like crying!

"I'm not enjoying this either," he said, in a more level, reasonable tone. "You know me … I hate arguments. I wouldn't bring this up now if it weren't so important."

He sat down next to her – at a safe distance – and gently placed a finger under her chin to turn her face towards him.

"Amy," he said – quiet, but very firm. "Tell me the truth. I need to know. If you'd remembered the Doctor earlier … _before_ our wedding … would you still have married me?"

Amy was silenced – more effectively than if he had slapped her. The moment before she could manage to speak felt like an eternity.

"What … what sort of question is that?" Through her tears, she felt her temper rising again. "I _did_ marry you, didn't I? Just like you always wanted. Are you telling me you're sorry now?"

"Only if you are."

"What do you mean?"

Rory's face was paler than ever, his mouse-brown hair still neatly combed from the wedding photographs. He looked very young and very old at the same time as he answered; like a man who had seen centuries pass.

"You watched me die, remember?" he said sadly, "Twice. And then your memories were erased, and then you saw me guarding the Pandorica. You don't have to stay with me out of guilt, or because you feel sorry for me or anything. You know I love you … I always have … but if you prefer the Doctor, we can get back to the registry office right now and file for divorce. Just say the word."

Amy, who had been fighting a losing battle against the urge to cry all along, let her tears spill over with an audible sob. She wiped her eyes and looked up, right into his beautiful, stormcloud-colored eyes.

"You idiot," she said. "How many ways do I have to say this?"

She grabbed him by the lapels of his tuxedo and kissed him – one of those fierce, posessive kisses she'd never give to anyone but Rory. She landed two more kisses, one on his forehead and one on the tip of his nose, just for good measure.

"Look," she said breathlessly, still holding on to the tuxedo. "I love you, Rory Williams. Nothing's gonna change that. It's like, it's like … " She snapped her fingers, groping for an explanation. She was a talented flirt, but deep emotional revelations had never been her strong suit.

"The Doctor's brilliant and all … with his cool time machine and his floppy hair and even that bow tie. And he's fun to flirt with because he gets all shocked, like an old maiden aunt." She giggled at the memory. "But, honestly? … Even if he did like me in that way – which he totally doesn't – when it comes down to it, I don't really need him. I managed without him for fourteen years, after all."

She reached over and took Rory's hand, the one with the ring, between both of hers.

"With you it's different," she said softly. "I've seen the universe without you … and it's not worth living in."

"Amy … "

She looked into his face, the same average, familiar face she had been seeing since their childhood, and found it extraordinary. This was the face of the boy who had found her seven-year-old self in the garden and lent her his handkerchief on the night the Doctor failed to appear. The boy who had started a schoolyard brawl with three seniors for saying she was crazy. The boy who had worked two jobs and sat up nights getting through medical school. The man who had stood guard over her for two thousand years

"You're my centurion," she said. "The bravest, kindest, most honorable man I've ever known. I loved you when you didn't even exist. I'm not about to stop now."

He was smiling now, and his eyes were very bright. It was his turn to lean forward and kiss her, in that gentle, almost reverent way he had as if he couldn't quite believe his luck.

"Come here, Mrs. Williams," he whispered, his warm breath ticking the skin of her neck. "We have a wedding night to celebrate … so as you would say in the most eloquent terms … " He slipped off the left strap of her wedding dress and kissed her white shoulder. "Shut up."


	2. My Precious Girl

So Reel Me In, My Precious Girl

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC; song lyrics quoted were composed by Murray Gold.

Rose Tyler-Smith hadn't noticed anything unusual about the song playing on the radio as she made dinner; she always kept the radio on as she cooked, to distract her from slicing vegetables, waiting for water to boil, etc. Ever since moving into her own flat in Pete's London, she'd had to learn to take care of herself – then, when a certain Human/Time Lord hybrid moved in, adjust all over again.

John Smith caught her around the waist and peered over her shoulder into the pot of tomato sauce she was stirring.

"How much longer did you say this would take?" he asked plaintively.

"Slice that for me, would you?" She gestured towards the purple onion on the cutting-board next to the stove. "Don't worry, you're not going to starve."

"I still can't believe this body needs three whole meals a day." He put a hand on his pinstriped stomach and looked down at it in bemusement. "And all this work it takes, too … to think it'll take three hundred years until the invention of the replicator."

On the TARDIS, the two of them had been able to order any food they liked, and it would materialize on a covered tray in the dining room. They could have cooked if they'd wanted, but since the Doctor's ventures into the kitchen inevitably ended with a screaming smoke detector, they simply hadn't bothered.

In order to distract John (and herself) from feeling melancholy about their past life, Rose tossed her blonde head playfully in the direction of the onion. "All this work, eh? I haven't seen you helping much, mister."

"Oh. Right." He picked up a knife, took two or three swipes at the onion … and stopped. A strange look was on his bespectacled face; a fierce, listening look, as if he were miles away.

"John?"

He turned towards her abruptly, grinning from ear to ear. "Rose, how cool is this universe?" he exclaimed. "Seriously? They're playing the exact same song. With exactly the same lyrics! Can you believe the coincidence?"

He swept her into his arms and began dancing her around the kitchen, ignoring her giggling protests. The lemon-yellow cupboards, parsley on the windowsill, constellation calendar, royal blue cookie jar, all seemed to whirl past her as the Doctor sang along with off-key enthusiasm:

"_Well, I've roamed about this Earth  
>with just a suitcase in my hand<br>and I've met some bog-eyed Joes,  
>I've met the blessed, I've met the damned.<br>But of all the strange, strange creatures  
>in the air, at sea, on land -<br>oh my girl, my girl, my precious girl,  
>I love you, you understand!"<em>

At the word "you", he dipped her abruptly, causing her hair to brush the kitchen counter. An alarming hiss sounded from the stovetop behind them; he drew her upright, still grinning, and kept a hold on one of her hands as she lunged across the floor to take the lid off the boiling spaghetti pot.

"What's gotten into you, love?" she asked. "You know, if these clump together, we'll have to eat them with a knife. Anything about this song I should know?"

"As a matter of fact, yes!" He assumed a lecturer's pose, chin propped on his hand, leaning against the counter. "I was just having a … an intense flashback moment, so to speak. First time I heard that song was at Donna's wedding reception. Lovely party, that was. Pity the Santa robots ruined it. I've told you the story haven't I?"

"Yes, go on."

"Anyway – there I was, watching all those people dance, and there was this woman – this blonde woman – not a bit like you, really, except for the hair color, but as I was saying – when her partner dipped her, for a second … I could have sworn I was looking at you on New Earth."

His voice began to soften, and his dark brown eyes looked further away than ever as he talked. "Right after Cassandra let go of you and you fell into my arms. Something about the way her hair fell over his shoulder … and her eyes were closed … and oh, Rose Tyler, I missed you abominably."

When he turned those eyes on her, she caught her breath at the memory of two years' yearning reflected there. She remembered how those mood swings of his, from childlike joy to icy fury to unfathomable sadness and back again, used to leave her dizzy with the effort of keeping up. After only a few months together with this new, human Doctor, she found herself having to get used to it all over again. He was as breathtaking as ever – with the difference that he was all hers.

"I missed you too," she said, holding him close enough to bury her face in his shirt and listen to the beat of his single heart.

"Nobody _fits_ me like you do," he murmured into her hair. "Just like this."

She knew what he meant, besides the hug. They had a shared sense of joy and wonder about them, like children running through a field. They could make each other roar with laughter until the TARDIS rang, or in this case, the flat. He had opened her eyes to the miracles of the universe; she had lit up the darkness inside him. They understood each other without speaking.

Neither of them mentioned John Smith's counterpart, the Time Lord Doctor, careering across the universe in his TARDIS and missing Rose as abominably as ever – but they both knew the other was thinking of him. Perhaps he'd found someone else to love. In fact, Rose hoped he had; maybe even that River Song, the feisty archaeologist who knew him from the future. She didn't like to think of her lonely angel remaining that way forever.

He had told her one that a human life was the one adventure he could never have. Well, he was certainly having it now.

"_So reel me in, my precious girl,  
>come on, take me home.<br>'Cause my body's tired of travelling  
>and my heart don't wish to roam."<em>

He whispered the words in her ear along with the song, and she smiled up at him with all the love in her heart.


	3. The Ponytail

The Ponytail

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"I want to do something for you," says Rory.

They're in the house, in the yellow-painted nursery, with a swarm of killer aliens in the bodies of senior citizens trying to break in at every door and window. In the other reality, they're drifting towards a Cold Star with only seconds to spare until they freeze to death. Either way they could die at any moment – and here is Rory, holding up a pair of scissors to cut off his ponytail.

The Dream Lord's malicious voice echoes in her mind: _You ran off with a handsome hero. Would you really leave him for a bumbling country doctor who thinks all he needs to make him interesting is a ponytail? _Followed by the Doctor's joking threat: _You hold him down, I'll cut it off?_

_You can't,_ Amy almost protests. _It took you a year to grow!_ But instead her hand claps over her mouth, because a loud sob might escape, and looking into Rory's rueful gray eyes, the reason for her tears suddenly hits her. It's a simple fact, so simple she could scream, because she's known it in her mind all along, but never in her heart.

How often, even as a joke, has she ordered him around, shut him up or called him stupid? The Doctor even nicknamed him "Mr. Pond" for his deference to Amy. They've all been mistaken all along. Rory does what Amy asks of him, not out of weakness, but out of love.

Love, she understands now, is not about being interesting. It's not about a Raggedy Doctor sweeping her off in his time machine to dazzle her with adventures. It's not even about the hug on the _Starship UK_, though that comes close, and it's definitely not about her clumsy, impulsive, post-Weeping-Angel-survival attempt at seduction. Love is something which a nine-hundred-year-old Time Lord, already scarred by too much loss, simply cannot provide for someone as short-lived as a human.

To love someone is to do anything – _anything_ – for that person.

And Rory loves Amy.

It's in the big things, like forgiving her after she kissed the Doctor; like joining the TARDIS crew in the first place when all he wanted was a job, a family, and a little rose-covered cottage like this one. But it's also in the little things, the mundane, everyday details she has always taken for granted. Like rushing to help if she so much as suspects the baby is coming. Like never forgetting to tape her favorite shows on the telly, even the soap operas he can't stand. Like knowing all the right places to massage her when the baby's weight becomes too much. Like phoning her in the middle of his bachelor party just to tell her she is smashing.

Like cutting off his ponytail.

She's just about to tell him her choice, when the Doctor interrupts by bursting through a window and the Mrs. Pogget alien comes storming up the stairs. It opens its mouth and lets out a cloud of green poison gas straight onto Rory.

He crumples to the floor, still holding the remnants of his ponytail. Amy barely notices the Doctor dispatching Mrs. Pogget through a window as she kneels by Rory's side, her eyes riveted to his ordinary face. She memorizes his tousled, sandy hair; his gray eyes with a touch of blue in them; his Roman nose. The face of the man she loves.

"Look after our baby," he tells her softly.

His last words before collapsing into a heap of dust on the floor.

"No," she whispers. "No … come back … "

_Don't die. Don't leave me. You were always the one to stay when everyone else left – the Doctor, my parents, my boyfriends, everyone. Please, please, if you come back I promise you can grow a new ponytail, and I'll never take you for granted as long as we live._

"Save him," she orders, with a quiet desperation too deep for tears. "You always save everbody. That's what you do."

"Not always," the Doctor replies, powerless grief in every line of his lanky, tweed-wearing figure. For a moment, she almost hates him – for not saving Rory, for not living up to the heroic ideal she'd believed in since she was eight, for being nothing after all but a clever, lonely old man.

"Then what," she demands bitterly, "Is the point of you?"

He looks at her as if she'd stabbed him, and she regrets her words immediately, but her mind is already racing ahead. There is still a way she can bring Rory back.

"This is the dream," she says. "Definitely this one. If we die here, we wake up, yeah? Either way, this is my only chance of seeing him again."

"How do you know?"

"Because if this is real life, then I – don't – want – it."

She wants no part of a world without Rory in it. She will smash the van into the house if that's what it takes. She will do anything to save the man she loves.


	4. Show Mercy

Show Mercy

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

After the Pond-Williams wedding, River Song used the Vortex Manipulator to go back to her cell in Stormcage. She ate her rations, curled up in her bunk and closed her eyes, fully intending to go to sleep. After all, she'd been running on sheer adrenaline for the past two days – or was it two thousand years? Being trapped in the Time Loop of an exploding TARDIS had left her even more disoriented than usual and in desperate need of rest. However, her head was spinning so much it felt as if she were still galloping across the English countryside on a white horse, or charging through the museum's marble halls with her gun, or waiting to be blown to pieces with the TARDIS, or looking into the Doctor's eyes as he strapped himself into the Pandorica. How could she sleep?

The Doctor … this young, unfinished version of the Doctor who hardly knew her. He'd sent her away with barely a goodbye, to speak his last words to Amy instead. Neither of them knowing if he'd actually come back, if his erasure from history would be permanent. If the memories she treasured so much would be erased as well.

There was another moment repeating itelf in her mind's eye, over and over again. That Dalek … that damned little pepperpot with the damaged armor. Why did it have to ask for mercy? Where in Heaven's name had it even learned the concept?

Since learning about the Time War and the destruction of Gallifrey, River had hated the Daleks just as much as the Doctor did. More, perhaps, because those compassionate hearts of his were never meant for hating. They had killed their fair share of Daleks together – _aim for the eyestalk, _he'd told her with grim efficiency, and in bits and pieces she'd come to know almost everything he knew about Dalek history, Dalek psychology, Dalek strengths and especially weaknesses. But she'd only ever fought them in swarms, and only with the Doctor for backup. Never alone.

"_You will be exterminated," the Dalek declared, rolling towards her along the marble floor._

"_Not yet," River retorted._ "_Your systems are still restoring, which means your shield density is compromised. One alpha-meson burst through your eyestalk would kill you stone-dead."_

"_Records indicate you will show mercy," the Dalek scoffed – if a Dalek could be said to scoff in that mechanical voice. "You are an associate of the Doctor's."_

_The idea of the creature even mentioning the Doctor in this contemptuous way, after the atrocities inflicted on the Time Lords by its compatriots, made River angry. Angry enough to smile coldly as she set her pistol to maximum._

"_I'm River Song. Check your records again."_

_The Dalek knew her at once, and most likely also why she was in Stormcage. It began to tremble. Its eyestalk drooped in submission, reminding her bizarrely of a puppy's ears._

"_Mercy?" it said, in a smaller voice than she'd ever heard a Dalek use._

"_Say it again."_

"_Mercy!"_

"_One – more – time."_

"_**Mercy!**__" It screamed as the alpha-meson beam hit its eye._

_When Amy and Rory asked her later what had happened to the Dalek, she told them "it died". The words "I killed it" refused to leave her mouth._

She sat up in her prison bunk and rubbed her sleepless eyes, thankful that the Doctor hadn't been watching. He would be ashamed of her. She could just imagine the quietly reproachful attitude he'd take: _I understand you had to kill it in self-defence, River, but there was no need to torment it like that. _Would he understand if she argued that she'd done it on his behalf? That her deep unspoken sympathy for the loss of his homeworld translated into a fierce desire for revenge?

_Revenge is never worth it, my dear. The more you hate them, the more you will become like them._ He would say this, not out of self-righteousness, but because he knew from hard experience how it felt to destroy. Being a good man, however, he kept on finding things to save – people, places, worlds – to outweigh the destruction, and River had promised him long ago to do the same.

_Next time, Doctor. Next time I fight, I will show mercy._


	5. Recognition

Recognition

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

Rory watched as River Song knelt down to pick the lock on the door at the end of the narrow, dark tunnel they were standing in. The red safety lights from the mechanism lit up her face to eerie effect as she worked.

"It's a lock," she said playfully, over her shoulder. "How could a girl resist?"

She reminded him awfully of a certain curious Time Lord: _Here's something that doesn't make sense … let's go and poke it with a stick!_

"You and the Doctor," Rory muttered. "I can sort of picture it."

She turned back abruptly towards the lock, her curly hair hiding her face. Part of him wished he hadn't said anything; it occurred to him that he and River really weren't on bantering terms yet. In fact he barely knew her. Still, he found he wanted to … not in any romantic sense, of course. Even if it weren't for her obvious history with the Doctor, River Song was hardly his type. But he liked her – her gung-ho attitude reminded him of Amy, and her reaction to the Doctor's death had been truly moving. Surely even a gun-toting, time-traveling, ex-con adventuress would sometimes need a friend.

"I was wondering," he said, "What did you mean … when you said there was a worse day coming for you?"

_The Doctor's death doesn't frighten me,_ she'd said earlier that day. _Neither does my own. There's a much worse day coming for me._

He hald expected her to smile wickedly, touch her finger to her lips, and say _Spoilers!_. So her answer, which came slowly after a significant pause, surprised him with its honesty.

"When I first met the Doctor," she said. "_My_ Doctor … he knew all about me. Can you imagine what that does to an impressionable girl?"

"I don't think I have to."

It was Rory's turn to look away. He had observed first hand how the Doctor affected Amy, and it was not a memory he cared to dwell on. Looking back at River, however, he found that she was smiling. This was a woman with a frizzy nest of straw-colored curls, a large crooked nose and the beginnings of a double chin – but when she smiled like that, lost in her memories of the Doctor, the musty tunnel became several degrees brighter and Rory knew he would never see her as plain again.

Then her smile faded, like a candle flame blown out, as quickly as it had come. "Trouble is," she said, with a would-be cavalier shrug, "It's all back to front. We're time travellers … every time we meet, I know him more and he knows me less. The day is coming when I'll look into that man's eyes and he won't have the faintest idea who I am … and I think that just might kill me."

The simple, matter-of-fact tone of her voice made Rory's heart ache, more than tears or shouting ever could have done. He thought of Amy in the tunnels below Stonehenge, staring blankly into his face after he'd saved her from the Cyberman. _So you're the guy who did that .. sword-y thing? Good sword. Thanks. _Sitting by the campfire, asking him for his _name_ – oh God, as if she'd never known it, never promised to take it for her own.

_Oh River, I'm so sorry. If only there was something I could do. _He did not say it – he knew better than to demonstrate his pity to this formidable woman – but he looked it, and she looked back.

_You're a good fellow, Rory Williams,_ her face seemed to say. _Thank you for listening._


	6. Taking Chances

Taking Chances

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"_I've had my heart beaten down,  
><em>_but I always come back for more, yeah.  
>There's nothing like love to pull you up<br>__when you're lying down on the floor, yeah.  
>So talk to me, talk to me, like lovers do.<br>Yeah walk with me, walk with me like lovers do …  
>What do you say to taking chances?<br>What do you say to jumping off the edge?"  
><em>- Celine Dion, "Taking Chances"

The Doctor hustled through the TARDIS console room like a distracted squirrel, shutting off the stabilizers, switching it back on when the lack of noise bothered him, and almost getting knocked off his feet by the bumpy transition into the Time Vortex. He couldn't seem to concentrate. Thank goodness Amy and Rory were already in bed and couldn't see him making a prat of himself.

River Song had _kissed_ him.

Casually, too, as if it was no more than she expected. _What's the matter?_ she'd asked. _You're acting like we've never done this before._

So they _were_ lovers in her timeline. It was one thing to flirt, even as outrageously as they did, but that kiss confirmed it without a doubt and the knowledge was staggering. Even more so was the realization that, all logic and self-preservation to the contrary, he _wanted_ to kiss her again.

_Oh no, no, no,_ he scolded himself, raking his hands through his long fringe. _This is bad. This is very, very bad. You can__**not**__ go falling in love with a convicted murderer who refuses to tell her story, especially one whose timeline runs opposite to yours. It would be all kinds of wrong, and awkward, and emotionally damaging … _He closed his eyes and leaned against a support beam, willing the images of River's exploding body out of his head.

He had seen her die. He would know the last time he saw her; he would give her his sonic screwdriver, already knowing how his tenth incarnation would transfer her consciousness to the Library computer. No doubt she would have wonderful adventures with Anita, the Daves and Miss Evangelista in CAL's realm, but the real world would lose her forever.

How could he give his hearts away, knowing exactly how and when they would be broken?

Thinking of heartbreak led him through a very unwelcome tumble down memory lane. He had loved all his companions, but been _in love _much less – and it had never ended well.

His first wife Io, a brilliant, beautiful, but all-too-conservative Time Lady, had resented him for his nomadic habits and brought up their daughter to feel the same way, until his ancestral manor became too hot to hold him and he stopped coming home altogether. By far the best thing to come out of that marriage had been his granddaughter Susan, the only one to inherit his spark. He had wound up stealing a TARDIS and spiriting her away, his first travelling companion, and oh, the adventures they'd had … but for centuries afterward, he'd never so much as thought of falling in love again. Not with Io's golden hair and black eyes still blazing in the back of his mind, and her accusing voice ringing in his ears. Even Romana – sweet, wise, noble Romana, who would have been worth loving if ever a woman was – hadn't quite managed to dispel his fear of another relationship gone sour.

They were long dead now, all of them, only a statistic among the millions of lives lost in the Time War. Except for Romana, who had chosen to exile herself in E-Space without ever knowing how he felt about her.

After the Time War, for the first time in nine hundred years, he'd been lonely and vulnerable enough to break his personal rule: never fall in love with a mortal, or let her feel the same. Rose Tyler's jokes had made him laugh, her courage and resourcefulness earned his respect, and her sheer human innocence had kept his soul together after years of balancing on the edge of madness. In retrospect, however, he knew that if it hadn't been for that Time Vortex kiss, he never would have gone as mad about her as he did. Regenerating with hearts, mind and body full to the brim with Rose's emotionally charged TARDIS energy had inadvertently turned him into her perfect mate – young-looking, handsome, outgoing, affectionate, and devoted to her in every way. Which had only made it all the more painful to lose her to another universe.

He could see now that the warped regeneration had affected his judgement. After losing Rose, he had idealized her memory so much as to do his other companions an injustice – as if _her_ kindness, _her_ courage, _her_ great deeds were the only ones that mattered. He remembered Martha Jones, who had walked through hell and back for love of him and asked for nothing in return. And Donna Noble, bless her ginger soul, who, when given the same power Rose had once wielded – the power of Time itself – had only disabled the Daleks, while Rose had reduced them to dust and doomed Jack Harkness to immortality. Leaving Rose on Pete's World with his duplicate had been the right thing to do, he thought, before the mistakes could get worse.

Nevertheless, what he regretted most about his history with Rose Tyler was not loving her too much. It was never telling her.

And here he was, back in the present day, driving the TARDIS away from another woman he hadn't told.

"Idiot," he muttered out loud.

River Song was brilliant, adventurous, and deadly with a gun, a trait he admired in spite of herself. She could fly the TARDIS better than he could. She was distractingly sexy, especially with her hair down, and could kiss like nobody's business. She was also, regardless of the murder on her record, a kind-hearted woman with a true reverence for life and death; he could never forget her gentle way with Miss Evangelista's data-ghost. He had long since made up his mind that, whomever she had killed – this "good man and hero to many" – she must have had an imperative reason for doing it. And whatever it was, she had promised he would find out very soon.

She knew his true name. The name he had revealed only once before, according to the most sacred customs of his people, on his wedding night. Even without knowing the future, he would still want to marry her. She was equal to him in a way no one else could be.

Yes, she had died, but it was a hero's death, and one she did not regret. River Song had gone out in a blaze of light, sacrificing herself to save him, along with the Library and everyone inside. Her last words to him had been words of reassurance and, he realized now, of love.

_Time can be rewritten_, he'd said.

_Not those times. Not one line, don't you dare! You'll see me again, you've got all of that to come. You and me … time and space … you watch us run._

Timelines be damned, how could he let this woman go?


	7. In Her Shadow

In Her Shadow

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor

Copyright: BBC

Rose Tyler was getting heartily sick of the name of Martha Jones.

It had started the day the Doctor saved her from the Nestene Consciousness and invited her to travel with him. Fiddling with the TARDIS controls to avoid her eyes, he'd told her: _I had this friend … Martha, her name was Martha … and … we were together. _Then, turning around fiercely:_ Don't ever think you're replacing her!_

Not much danger of that, she thought wearily. The woman was everywhere to him. It would have been very sad if it weren't so aggravating.

When Rose and the Doctor observed the natural end of Planet Earth: _There was a war. We lost. I'm the last of my kind … if I hadn't met Martha, who knows what would have become of me? I swear, that woman saved my soul._

The time a dying Dalek she'd accidentally revived went on a killing rampage, had an existential breakdown and asked her to order it to self-destruct: _You touched it? After I expressly told you not to? That was a careless, thoughtless, _stupid_ thing to do and Martha Jones would never have done it!_

On New Earth, in a sunny applegrass meadow: _When I was here with Martha, we stopped a traffic jam that had lasted twenty-four years and sent all the cars soaring up to the sky. What'd you think of that, eh? _

When they discovered the atrocities going on in the NNY City Hospital: _If only Martha were here. She's a medical student, you know, and some of her training would be really helpful right about now._

The day they ran into Sarah Jane at the alien-infested school: _Martha never spoke an unkind word to any of my previous companions, and if anyone had the right to be jealous, it was her. Why can't you be more like that?_

The day the Wire stole her face: _Why is it that every time I turn around, you wander off and get into trouble? When I traveled with Martha, I could always trust her to take care of herself when we were separated. Sometimes she'd even rescue _me_, and she didn't need the Time Vortex to do it!_

Rose Tyler loved the Doctor. He was everything to her. She loved his larger-than-life moods: shattering sorrow, smoldering rage, all-embracing joy. She loved the occasional hug he gave her after they'd escaped some danger or other. She loved his headlong dashes into danger, his last-minute plans, his rapid-fire explanations. She loved him for saving the world again and again. But she knew quite well how hopeless her love was. He would never see her as anything but a little blonde shopgirl; good enough for friendship but not for love. When he'd left Martha Jones trapped in that alternate universe, his hearts had stayed behind.

Perhaps, after all, it would be better for Rose to go back to Mickey; her neighbor and childhood sweetheart was neither exciting nor dangerous, but he at least would never leave her. The more she thought about it, the more welcoming the prospect seemed.

She had to get out, while she still could.


	8. Half Human

Half Human

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"_I'm half human, on my mother's side." _– Eighth Doctor

The moment the Doctor placed his hands on Donna Noble's temples and entered her mind, he knew. The feeling was as warm as a cup of steaming hot tea, as familiar as an old blanket – or it would have been, if not for the tears running down her face and her cry of protest tearing through the link. _Please, no!_

He saw it all – Shan Shen, the Library, the Sontarans, the Ood, Agatha Christie, Pompeii, the Adipose, the almost-wedding. All the wonderful and terrible memories he would have to erase. But before he did, he opened his own mind to her, showing her something he knew she'd understand.

- A Time Lady in Prydonian colors, her long red-gold hair like fire under the twin suns of Gallifrey, rides a hoverbike through a grove of silver-leafed trees. A little boy sits on her lap, clinging to the handlebars. Both of them laugh and scream as the wind whistles theough their hair. -

_Who is that? _Donna whispered in shock. _She doesn't look like me … but …_

- A white stone house appears in the distance, growing closer. The woman and the boy park their bike in the driveway and run to embrace a tall, dark-haired, stern-looking Time Lord in formal robes, whose face softens considerably as he kisses the Lady and ruffles the boy's hair. _You're a little old for this behavior, son, _he grumbles affectionately. _Why, you're almost of age for the Academy. And you, Donna, you only encourage him._

_Try and stop me, _she scoffs, tossing her red mane. -

Comprehension dawned for Donna. _Is that … ? No way … !_

_Yes, indeed. Sigma Rei of Lungbarrow, a highly respected Academy professor with a secret affinity for travel, will meet you in the year 2013 during an alien invasion. You'll help him defend the Earth, take a bullet for him, regenerate, and wake up with complete amnesia. He'll take you home to his mansion, tutor you in Gallifreyan ways, you'll fall in love over calligraphy and temporal mechanics, get married and have a son. And the moment you first hold that baby in your arms, your memories will be complete. You'll know who you are. You'll know who I am. Our new adventure will begin._

Her reaction was just what he had expected – dizzy astonishment and joy, shot through with righteous indignation.

_I knew it. I knew it! Now hold on a minute, am I seriously getting mind-wiped by __**my own son?**_

_I'm sorry, Mother. It's already written._

_Just you wait, Spaceman._ Her inner voice was laughing; as usual, her hot temper giving way to resignation, then to peace. She knew as well as he did what the consequences were of meddling with fixed points in time. _When we meet again, I'll have so many opportunities to get you grounded!_

_Yes, and you'll also be the one who leaves picnic baskets by my door. Forever nagging me about how I'm too skinny. I should have known it the moment I met you._

They remembered – all the moments they laughed together, all the well-deserved scoldings and comforting hugs she gave him, all the times they acted so alike to strangers, the times she understood him without words and took his burden on her own shoulders, out of pure unconditional love.

_What about the other Doctor?_ she asked.

_Oh, it's simple. He's me, except that my human DNA from you has been practically erased after so many regenerations. The other Doctor got an extra shot of you, so to speak – he's what I would be if my human side were dominant. All I've got left of you is your gingery attitude, minus the hair. And a certain affinity for a small planet in the corner of the Milky Way._

_Oh, you silly boy. No wonder you keep coming back to 20__th__-century London and doing mad, impossible things to protect it. No wonder your TARDIS translates everything to English. No wonder you can cure anything from regeneration trauma to the common cold with a nice cup of tea. Earth is the only home you've got left. And now I know everything, are you really gonna make me forget?_

_It's not forever,_ he promised, completing the meld. _It will all come back someday. And until it does, Mother, remember this one thing: love is out there. Look up at the stars and you will find it._

_I love you too, _she replied.

Her last conscious thought was his name – his true name, the one she had whispered into his ear when he was born. The Gallifreyan word for "noble". Then she collapsed into his arms and he carried her gently out of the console roo, back to her own room, already worried about the explanation he would give to Sylvia and Wilf. There was one thing, however, he would absolutely have to tell them. One thing they ought to remember if Donna could not.

_For one shining moment, she was the most important woman in the universe._


	9. Companioned

Companioned

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

(Scene borrowed directly from "The Sontaran Stratagem")

"_If there be anyone can take my place  
>And make you happy whom I grieve to grieve,<br>Think not that I can grudge it, but believe  
>I do commend you to that nobler grace,<br>That readier wit than mine, that sweeter face;  
>(…) But since the heart is yours that was mine own,<br>Your pleasure is my pleasure; right my right,  
>Your honorable freedom makes me free<br>And, you companioned, I am not alone."_

- Christina Rossetti, "Sonnet 12", _Unnamed Lady Sonnets_

"Didn't take long to replace me, did you?" said Martha, looking over the Doctor's shoulder at the auburn-haired woman peering out from the TARDIS.

She wished she could take it back immediately – it was meant to be a joke, but in spite of the friendly slap on his shoulder, her words came out sounding positively jealous. She tensed up in her black uniform, wondering if the stranger would take offense.

"Donna, Martha; Martha, Donna. Please don't fight, I can't bear fighting," said the Doctor, obviously fearing the same thing.

Instead Donna came forward and shook Martha's hand, looking older but also prettier up close. She had hazel eyes, a strong nose that gave her face character, and the brightest smile Martha had seen in a long time.

"He talks about you all the time," says Donna.

Did he really? Martha glanced at the Doctor, who was still watching them both nervously. Did he talk half as much about her as he'd once talked about Rose?

"I dread to think," she said lightly.

"No, he says nice things! Good things." Donna's reassurance was a little to quick, her smile a little too eager. Martha's heart sank.

"Oh my God, he told you everything!" she blurted out, her hand covering her mouth. Either that, or nothing at all, which would be even worse.

"Didn't take you long to get over it, though," Donna replied bluntly. Martha winced internally – so this stranger _did_ know she'd once been hopelessly in love with the Doctor. That she would have given him anything he asked for, even if what he asked was for her to walk the Master's world for a year as his emissary. That she neither asked for, nor expected, his love in return, and had left him just to save her heart from being broken further.

Instead of saying something hurtful, which she easily could have, Donna picked up the younger woman's hand and beamed at the sight of the diamond she wore. "Who's the lucky man?" she squealed playfully, as if they were already friends.

"What man?" asked the Doctor, incomprehension written all over his beautiful face.

"She's_ engaged_, you prawn."

_That_ was when Martha decided once and for all that she liked Donna. Anyone who could take the Doctor down a peg like that was worthy of respect. This woman would never let her head be turned by hero-worship; she would never lose herself as Martha nearly had. Even as she described her fiançé to them – "Oh, I know; I've got a doctor who travels off to distant places" – she began to feel a bittersweet sort of happiness for the Doctor.

"He is too skinny for words," said Donna, in the half-scolding, half-affectionate tone of a wife or sister. "You hug him, you get a paper cut!"

"I almost prefer the fighting," the Doctor grumbled, the smile on his face giving away just how much he enjoyed the attention.

Martha could imagine the warm, spining, laughter-filled hugs those two must have shared, no doubt after escaping some significant disasters. The Doctor was a champion hugger, as he'd reminded her just a few minutes ago. The idea of him sharing them with Donna did not hurt her as much as she would have expected. It even made her smile.

If she couldn't be with him, taking care of him and helping him save the world, it was comforting to know that a kind, level-headed, outspoken woman like Donna was in her place.


	10. The Amy Code

The Amy Code

Amelia Pond has never been much for showing affection. Yes, she can flirt outrageously, kiss the socks off a man when she feels like it, and generally drive him crazy in exciting ways – but showing her true feelings is another matter. She does that in subtle, roundabout ways that most people wouldn't even notice, as if she were afraid that being too open would scare them into leaving. Since he met her, the Amy Code (as he privately thinks of it) has taken Rory Williams years to figure out.

A punch on the shoulder means reassurance: _I knew I'd be coming back,_ she'd said in the alleyway in Venice, avoiding the question of whether she had missed him. Ruffling his hair means remembering a lifetime of familiarity: _You could be my brother_ (although that really wasn't what he had in mind).

There is a certain smile she shows him, bright and twinkly and irresistible, that means she is about to get them both in trouble (just like in high school when they were caught making out on the rooftop). He would always take the trouble for the sake of that smile.

Also, he is probably the only man in the world who _likes_ being called different variations of "stupid" by his wife. It's the strangest and most important code word of all, which no one who does not know her could possibly understand.

Amy knows quite well that Rory is not stupid. She encouraged him to get through his training as a nurse, helped him study for his exams, brags to her friends that she has a fiançé who saves lives, and shows her ferocious ginger temper to anyone who suggests that nursing is an unmanly profession. The only times she uses that word are either when he doubts their relationship (_I've already chosen – it's you, stupid!_) or when one of them is in danger.

After saving him from the vampire-alien-fish Francesco, whom he'd attempted to fight with folklore and a broomstick: _Why'd you make the sign of the cross, you numpty?_ Followed by an epic kiss on the staircase which left him literally dizzy.

Listening to her recorded voice after she was abducted by the Silence: _I love you … I know you think it's him, I know you think it _ought_ to be him … but it's you. My life was so _boring_ before you just … dropped out of the sky. If we live through this, I'm gonna tell you properly … just to see your stupid face._ At the time, sitting next to the Doctor with the little red recorder in his hand, Rory felt painfully uncertain about the addressee of that speech of Amy's. "Dropped out of the sky"was so suggestive of the TARDIS, not to mention their life in Leadworth being boring … it was a complaint she'd made more often than he could count. But then again, she had never called the Doctor stupid before, had she? Perhaps because he is simply too much of a brilliant, heroic Time Lord for even Amy to apply that epithet. Or perhaps because he wouldn't understand.

_Get your stupid face out of here!_ That was the moment Rory knew. It's a subconscious thing – the same words, the same thoughts, repeating in her mind. "Stupid face" means: "It's stupid for you to put yourself in danger". It means: "I need you to be safe". It means: "I love you."

"I'm _never_ gonna stop being stupid!" he tells her, swirling her around in a delighted embrace.

Translation: "I love you too".


	11. The Most Beautiful Thing

The Most Beautiful Thing

"D'you think I should dye my hair?" asked Amy, twirling a strand of it around one finger as she frowned at herself in the vanity mirror.

"What?" Rory, already in bed, sat up and shook his head in sleepy irritation. "Why?"

"I've never liked it," Amy confessed. "It's so … carroty. I always wished it was black or something more dignified like that. Think I should dye it?"

He sighed. It felt like junior high all over again, when she had worried about her freckles and her bust size and even the strangest things such as the size of her pores, and he was just about to tell her to stop being stupid, when something about her statement finally clicked into place. _Black _hair?

"Hold on," he said, climbing out of bed and walking up behind her in his striped pyjamas. "Don't tell me you're _still_ jealous of the siren – I mean the medical hologram."

"I am not!" she bristled.

"Really?" He placed his hands on her shoulders and raised an eyebrow at her reflection in the mirror.

"I just – ugh, you should've seen yourself. _'The most beautiful thing you've ever seen …' _I mean, of course the music was a drug, sort of, and it worked for the others, but _they_ hadn't seen a woman in months! What if she hadn't been harmless?" She swung around in her chair and glared up at him. "What if she _was_ luring you to her death? You, you completely lost your head back there. You weren't _you_ anymore!"

So that was the problem. Rory wished, uneasily, that he had a clear memory of how he'd behaved. He took her hands in his and pulled her to her feet.

"Amy … listen. First of all, you can't hold something against me that I said under the influence of … whatever that was."

"I know," she said ruefully. "I wasn't gonna say anything, I just … "

"Amy, I love you." He linked their fingers together and raised her hands, showing her both their wedding rings glinting in the lamplight. "Don't you ever, ever doubt that. It's nothing any amout of sirens could change."

"That's good." She smiled shakily.

"And you know what?" He took a step backward, then another, slowly leading her across the plush carpeting to the big, warm canopy bed behind them.

"What, Rory?" The playful sparkle was returning to her gray-green eyes; she knew exactly what he had in mind.

"The most beautiful thing I've ever seen … and note that I'm saying this at full mental capacity … "

"Go on!" They reached the bed and she went to work on his pyjama shirt buttons, slowly, just the way she'd unwrap a candy bar to maximize the ."

" … is you."

She beamed.

"You saved my life, Amy," he said seriously. "I woke up and there you were, crying, with the light catching your hair like some sort of halo. Your hair is perfect. Don't ever change it, okay?"

Just to prove his point, he ran his fingers through the whole long, fire-red length of it, feeling it slide like warm silk.

"Never," she breathed. "Now c'mere, husband of mine. I'll _show_ you perfect!"

She pounced on him like a little lioness, making them both fall across the bed in fits of laughter. _Perfect is right,_ thought Rory, smiling up into his wife's luminous face. It was the last coherent thought he had for a long time.


	12. Night Shadows

Night Shadows

_The man's face was wild, half obscured by a tangle of hair and beard, with a large nose and a pair of gleaming blue eyes the only visible features. He still wore the same plaid shirt and jeans. Amy backed up._

"_Rory?"_

"_You left me," he growled, stumbling to his feet. "Two thousand years I waited for you … and you did it to me __**again**__!"_

_He chased after her, his hands outstretched, the blue eyes she had once loved glazed over with madness. She screamed and ran, hurtling along endless green-lit corridors, all identical, all leading nowhere, listening for her pursuer, praying she'd shake him off. She rounded a corner – and saw her own name, written in red._

_The writing filled the corridor. Black marker and red paint, dripped and streaked luridly across the gray walls. HATE AMY. KILL AMY. DIE AMY. And sitting by the door, the same door where she had found Rory twice before, was a rotting skeleton dressed in the remnants of a plaid shirt and jeans._

"_No … "_

"No!" Amy woke up in bed, the new double bed, sitting bolt upright half choking on her own tears.

"What the … ?" The sleepy voice from the opposite side of the bed, which at any other time would have reassured her, now made her jump out of bed and grab the heavy table lamp. If he came after her again, she could at least defend herself.

"Stay away," she gasped, brandishing the lamp. "I'm warning you!"

Rory held up his hands, the blanket falling away to reveal his bare chest. "Amy, what is this?"

"I'm sorry, all right? I never meant to leave you! Just don't, don't kill me and I promise I'll never do it again – " she said wildly, her whole body shaking with sobs

"Amy, _what the bloody hell are you talking about_?"

Rory's hands raised in surrender, his sleep-tousled hair and the honest bewilderment in his familiar voice all combined into a clear picture at last. She realized that her bare feet were standing on carpeting, that some of her hair was damp with sweat and tears, that the lamp was really too heavy to hold much longer, and that she was in fact awake and facing a justifiably confused and frightened husband.

"Sorry," she managed to say, putting the lamp back on the night stand and sitting down on the edge of the bed. "Just a dream. I … I'm okay now."

"I can see that," said Rory, in a voice almost as unsteady as hers. "Threatening to bash me with a piece of furniture is definitely okay. Now why don't you tell me what that dream was about?"

He only ever got sarcastic when he felt seriously unnerved. It almost made her smile, but instead she found herself crying, because even at his most sarcastic, he was still kind. He didn't sound at all like the man who'd wanted to kill her. She reached for a tissue to wipe her still stinging eyes.

"I dreamed we were back in that … that maze thing," she confessed. "When House controlled the TARDIS. Remember when we got separated?"

"Yeah … and I waited for hours, but it was only minutes for you."

"Well, I saw you two more times … except it wasn't really you, it was House messing with my head … but … "

The shivers began to overtake her as she told him what she had seen. The vengeful old man. The writing on the wall. The skeleton.

"It could've been you," she concluded miserably. "It could've been you so easily, sitting there … dying and hating me. Rory … you _have_ to believe me. I never, ever, in all my life, meant to hurt you. I love you so much … "

When Rory reached across the bed to touch her hand, she jumped. He drew back; she grabbed his hand and held it tight between both of hers.

"Please don't," he said.

She looked up. It was too dark to see his face clearly, but the ancient sorrow in his young voice was perfectly clear.

"Please don't be afraid of me, Amy. It hurts so much."

"I'm sorry," she choked out.

"Don't apologize." With his other hand, he slowly reached out to brush her tangled hair out of her face, then to stroke her cheek, just as gently and cautiously as he had done on their first night together as lovers.

"I won't lie to you," he said. "I _did _get angry sometimes, waiting for you. I used to have these … imaginary rows with you, by the Pandorica. Calling you stubborn and careless, things like that. But for all that, I never forgot that it was _my_ responsibility. My choice. You didn't _make_ me wait, you know – not when we were growing up, and not when I was guarding the Pandorica. I chose to wait for you because I love you. And I know it was the right choice."

"You killed me once," she breathed. "You might do it again."

She remembered – Rory as an Auton, screaming for her to run while she held him close. _You're not going anywhere._ The unexpected sharpness of the bullet from his arm cannon. The world fading dizzily to black as she fell backward in his arms. Killed by the one man who had always made her feel safe.

"_If_ that happens, the Doctor and I won't stop until we've brought you back. The only way I'll ever allow you to die on me, Amy, is when you're a scary old lady surrounded by grandkids. I promise you that."

She laughed shakily. This was no time to point out that they still hadn't cleared the question of having children, let alone grandchildren. At this moment though, she could actually see it – lying in bed, frail and white-haired, with an equally elderly Rory holding her hand and a flock of large-nosed, red-haired descendants. Grandfather Rory wouldn't look at all like the Rory from her hallucination. He would have a kind face, with wrinkles made from decades of loving laughter.

She took a deep breath, in and out, looking anxiously into her husband's night-shadowed face.

"You really don't hate me?" she asked. "Not even a bit?"

An instant answer would have only worried her all the more, as would emphatic denials. But Rory paused, long enough to think before he spoke – to think over the way she had taken him for granted, been rude to him, left him behind to travel with the Doctor, even tried to seduce the Doctor. Long enough, moreover, to think of her sincere remorse for her mistakes, her honest demonstrations of love and loyalty, the times she'd saved his life, and the fact that she'd introduced him to a life of wonder and adventure he would never otherwise have known.

"No," he said.

It was all she needed to hear. She hugged him and he hugged her back, the silent warmth of it expressing more than they could ever say in words. No wonder the poor TARDIS had struggled to express herself while trapped in a human body; sometimes speech was simply not enough.

As the two of them settled back into their usual sleeping positions, she curled up as close to him as ever, their bodies molding together like two puzzle pieces.

"Good night," she whispered.

"You too ... no more nightmares, okay?"

For the rest of that night at least, the nightmares really did stay away. She dreamed of the telepathic pass key the TARDIS had given them to break into the old control room; the four beautiful images one had to thnk with all one's mind.

"_Crimson". A red flag waving in the wind across a blue summer sky. Red as the scarf Mrs. Williams had given her for Christmas, or the roses and candy hearts Rory used to give her, or his endearingly silly stag night shirt._

"_Eleven". The candles on her eleventh birthday cake, which a young Rory had eagerly reminded her to make a wish on. She had two wishes – one for the Raggedy Doctor to come back, and one for her best friend always to smile as he did that day._

"_Delight". Their wedding day – the white veil; the flowers; Rory's face so beautifully solemn; slow dancing with him under the shimmering disco lights; the promise of a lifelong adventure by his side._

_The fresh, earthy, promising smell of dust after rain_


	13. Stand Away

Stand Away

"Stand. Away."

The Doctor pointed his screwdriver at Amy and Rory, who were huddled together in front of him like two children staring down the barrel of a gun. Rory knew the look on the Doctor's face – it was his cold look, his alien look, his _'don't-ever-think-you're-capable-of-that_ look. During the Time War, he must have stared down Daleks exactly like this. There was nothing to do but obey.

With one apologetic glance at Amy's terrified face, he stepped back and slowly – very slowly – let go of her hand.

"No … " she whispered.

One click of the Doctor's screwdriver reduced her to a puddle of Flesh on the control room floor. Rory stared at it for a moment in shock. So that was what the Doctor had meant by _'I'm sorry, we will find you'_ – the original Amy had been abducted for unknown purposes and this copy put in her place.

"You … you _killed_ her," he stammered.

"She's a Ganger, Rory."

"I can see that!" Rory snapped. "I'm not an idiot." He was a patient man, but Jen's betrayal and this heartbreaking revelation had stretched his temper to the breaking point. He advanced towards the Doctor, feeling the barrier between him and his two thousand years of plastic start to crumble.

"How long?" he managed to say. _How long have I been living with a clone of my wife without even realizing it? While my real wife is locked away somewhere, _pregnant,_ most likely with my baby, and waiting to be rescued?_

"My guess would be since we rescued her from the Silence," replied the Doctor matter-of-factly, backing away along the TARDIS console and trying to make it look subtle. "Since that's when her on-and-off pregnancy started. It was probably too recent for the Ganger Amy to be able to duplicate it correctly."

_Eight months. Eight. Months. When she gave me CPR; when she hugged me in the corridor while the TARDIS was posessed; when we made love for the first time in our new king-size bed … all that time … She could have given birth by now. What if I'm the father? … What if I'm not?_

"Did you know?" he asked. Trust the Doctor to keep it secret from both of them.

"Not until today."

So at least he hadn't wilfully neglected to rescue the original Amy.

"Right," he said, every bit as quietly outraged as the Doctor could be. "So, let me get this straight … you just murdered the girl who's been my wife for the past eight months. Mind telling me why?"

The Doctor looked down at his screwdriver, then down at Amy's remains. A nauseated look settled on his face as it dawned on him just what he had done, but in a moment it was gone; that steely look from before snapped right back into place, like a bear trap.

"Because Amy's my exception," he said.

And Rory understood. Much as he hated the Doctor for it right now, he understood. He saw how the Doctor might consider it unforgivable for Amy – his mad, impossible, unique Amelia Pond – to be cloned. He saw how the Doctor's love for her (so different from Rory's and yet so much the same) was enough to make him abandon all his principles for her sake: changing someone's personal timeline (Kazran Sardick), causing genocide (the Silence) and now killing an entity whose only crime was to replace the woman they both loved.

"So we'll find her," said Rory. "But after that … "

"After that, you jump ship and go back to Leadworth?" the Doctor interrupted, smiling bitterly. "Not that I blame you, mate."

"If Amy agrees."

He didn't need to say the rest of what he was thinking; judging by the Doctor's crestfallen face, it was all there in Rory's two-thousand-year-old eyes.

_You crossed a line today, Doctor, and I'm finding it very hard to forgive you. But when you live as long as we do, you understand that you can move on from just about anything. Remember when you told me my girlfriend wasn't more important than the whole universe, and I punched you? _

_Well, now you know how it feels._


	14. Hello Sweetie

Hello Sweetie

Melody "Mels" Pond-Williams was thrilled by her new body. Not only was it a great improvement on ending up a toddler in a dark alley in 1960's New York, and a lot safer for Nazi Germany than the skinny black teenager she had been, but it suited her down to the bone. A face full of character, legs that could carry knee-high boots with panache, curves in all the right places – even that lion's mane of hair was strikingly unique. She posed in front of the mirror and blew herself a kiss. _Thanks a lot, Adolf._

A shadow behind her reflection made her turn around.

**_Remember your mission, child._**

She gasped and backed away from the tall, black-clad, corpselike Silent One advancing towards her. She knew he was a Silent One because even as she stared, hundreds of memories flooded out from behind that locked door in her mind. Memories of Silent Ones teaching her to shoot, feeding her small doses of poison to build up her immunity, drilling her in hand-to-hand combat as soon as she could walk. Silent Ones standing by with grim approval as Madame Kovarian told her bedtime stories. Stories of the man called the Doctor, who had murdered his own race and many others besides, who must be stopped no matter what the cost …

_"No - !"_

Not the Doctor – not the funny, kind-hearted hero of Amy's stories. Not the beautiful green-eyed man in the bow tie whom she had only just met. How could he, of all people, be the monster she was destined to kill?

**_Do not resist,_** said the Silent One in his deep, mechanical voice, catching her by both shoulders and staring at her with eyes like endless tunnels. **_Your body knows your task, even if your mind does not._**

She tried to shove him away, but even her newly regenerated body was no match for the iron strength of his hold. She remembered hiding the gun in the chair behind her even as she flirted with the Doctor like the careless young woman she was. Hiding it subconsciously and forgetting, the way you forget brushing your teeth or locking the car door, as if it were second nature – which it was. She even remembered what had happed during her regeneration, when the pain should have been all that occupied her thoughts.

"I can't," she told the Silent One, grasping at her excuse. "I can't do it. He stole my bullets while I was regenerating. Sorry, you'll have to come back another time."

**_Use this._**

He handed her a tube of lipstick, which she uncapped and sniffed. Judas tree sap – fatal to a Time Lord on contact, unless you'd been eating it for the first eight years of your life. Was she supposed to kill the Doctor with a kiss? How neat … how wickedly elegant. How appropriate for the man who never used a gun.

She shook her head.

"Amy and Rory – I couldn't do that to them. He's their friend … they'd hate me after … "

**_Why should you care what they think of you?_**

"Because – because they're my family, that's why!"

**_We, the Silence, are your true family. We have taught you everything you know. You are other than human. You were born to kill. _**

He was right. She had always been an outsider in Leadworth – with her classmates, her teachers, even her sweet young parents, who had called her out countless times for not behaving like "a normal, legal person". She was never more at ease than with a gun holstered on her hip. She never had fit in with them, and never would.

**_These humans will never accept you when they find out; they will despise you for being what you are. So will the Doctor, in his hypocrisy. Reject them, child, before they do the same to you._**

There was nothing in all the worlds as irresistible as the command of a highest-level priest of the Order of Silence. The scraps of humanity Mels had picked up from Amy and Rory were flattened like crumbs under a steamroller. There _was_ no life except the Order; there _was_ no truth apart from her mission. Would those pitiless black eyes never let her go?

One more memory resurfaced, of two eyes as unlike the Silent One's as possible. Light green eyes, looking into hers with quiet resignation. _It's all right. I know it's you._ Two gunshots. A flare of golden light. The heartbreaking serenity of his body lying on the sand. Her eight-year-old self tearing the space suit to pieces when she might as well have torn off her own skin. A memory she had deliberately suppressed, in a futile attempt to keep her sanity.

Melody was a murderer. She had killed the Doctor already; she might as well do it again. Maybe this way, she could even prevent the future Doctor from arriving at that beach in Utah, spare her innocent little self a few more years. In the meantime, she had better convince Amy and Rory that they needn't continue investing their kindness; that she'd been a lost cause from the moment of her birth.

If she played her part well enough, they might disown her forever, buy a cottage in Leadworth and raise a swarm of normal, legal children who could make them happy. She was a great liar. She could do it.

Melody bowed to the Silent One in acquiescence, applied a heavy coat of poisoned lipstick, turned away and whirled out of the room. She grabbed the gun from its hiding place – bullets or no bullets, it made a good show – and aimed it at her beautiful victim's chest.

"Let's get down to business," she said.

-DW-

It had all gone according to plan. The kiss; the poison; Amy's outrage; Rory's numb disbelief. She had jumped out the window with studied nonchalance, planning to throw herself into whatever trouble she could find … until the Justice Department, her parents and the Doctor all caught up with her and her careful plan went down the drain.

She watched the Doctor crawling up to the TARDIS, inch by agonizing inch, his sonic-headed cane thrown aside for its inability to keep him upright. With three minutes to live, he was neither cursing her nor plotting revenge as he had every right to do; instead, all his faculties were concentrated on saving Amy and Rory from the Tessalecta. Foolish human that she was, she could not keep her eyes away.

"River," he rasped. "Help me … please … "

River Song. Who the hell was she? How often had he mentioned her name? And why did Melody have the uncanny, queasy feeling that she herself was being addressed every time he said it?

"River _again_?" she sneered, just to dispel that fear. "She's got to be a woman, am I right? Tell me about her."

Perhaps she could track down this stranger – it must be a stranger – and inform her of her lover's death. It was only proper. The Doctor, as if sensing her thoughts, let out a growl of desperation which resounded through the room.

"Oh_, just_ … help me!"

In that moment, she knew what she had to do. She knew it with a blinding certainty that had nothing to do with subliminal messages, outside commands, childhood conditioning or anything else other than a clear, present, imperative insistence that _this_ was the right thing to do. She ran past him, flung open the TARDIS doors and rushed inside without a backward glance.

_Welcome, my child,_ said a voice in the back of her mind.

It was a woman's voice, wise and loving and patient, worlds away from the chilling commands of the Silence. Melody moved along the console as if it were her own body, touching the controls with the ease of long familiarity. If she hadn't been intent on her mission, she might have gawked at her own skill for hours; as it was, she had no time to be astonished.

_Get inside the Tessalecta, please! Help Amy and Rory! _No sooner had she thought this than a young couple, clinging together like two saplings growing side by side, materialized just in front of the TARDIS doors.

They stepped apart, laughing with relief. Amy's red hair shone brighter than ever, as did Rory's kind gray eyes crinkled in a smile. Her own mother and father, safe and sound – the most beautiful sight she'd ever seen. How could she not have known how much she loved them?

Once they caught sight of her, she braced herself for condemnation, even hatred. It did not come. Instead the three of them went back to watch over the Doctor; one family, mourning together, just as if his death had never been her fault. That cold voice at the back of her mind, wherever it came from – the voice telling her that they would despise her – was completely wrong.

"Find her," the Doctor whispered. "Find River Song … tell her something from me."

She knelt down so he could whisper in her ear. The words he spoke were so life-changing, so shattering and yet so simple, that for a moment the breath caught in her throat. Of course … what else could it be?

"Well," a half-laugh, half-sob escaped her, "I'm sure she knows."

Melody did know, and the Doctor knew that she knew. It did not take the Tessalecta's visual interface to show her the truth she had been denying all along.

In these words, Melody found herself. She found her future, the man who would share it, the admirable woman she would become. She found her past, the deep and abiding love of the friends who were her parents, which would shield her from her own darkness like the TARDIS' forcefield keeping out the vacuum of space. She found her moral compass, and most importantly, she found her heart.

She leaned down and kissed the Doctor with everything she had.

It was a matter of balance; a kiss of life to balance a kiss of death. Her lives for his; her soul for his.

"Hello, sweetie," said River Song.

_Only River Song gets to call me that._ From now on, she would say it every time they met. Like Amy calling Rory "stupid face", it would be her signal – her secret code word for "I love you too."


	15. Superhero Teacher

Superhero Teacher

(Note: This chapter is rated T for language.)

It only took five words for River Song to change their entire lives. Five words and a bit of golden silk, embroidered with alien letters that shifted in Amy's eyes as she remembered the young soldier from the Gamma Forest. _It's a prayer leaf … if you keep this with you, your child will always come home to you. _

Since there were no ponds in the Forest, Lorna Bucket had taken liberties with the translation – and on the prayer leaf, Melody Pond became River Song.

"It's me," River said softly, her gray eyes brimming over. "I'm your daughter."

Amy's ears were ringing. It was to much to take in. To wake up in labor after unknowingly living through a Flesh avatar for eight months – to hold her baby Melody and lose her after only minutes – to reunite with her beloved Rory and see the tears on his soldierly face – to feel the baby collapse into a puddle of Flesh in her arms and realize she was long out of reach – and now _this!_ All she could do was stare at River – this woman, this middle-aged woman who was suddenly her baby girl. None of it made any sense.

After a long and painful silence, Rory was the first to recover. He glanced between Amy and River, gave a shaky laugh, and stepped forward.

"You see," he told Amy. "We were both right. She's a superhero … _and_ she's a teacher."

For the first time, she could see how much his soft gray eyes resembled River's.

"River … Melody … whatever you'd like to be called," Rory continued, holding out his arms to his daughter. "I'm very … _very _… glad to see you again."

River hugged him – armor, cloak and all. Like a signal, that one small act dissolved the tension in the air like a champagne bottle being uncorked. Amy pounced on them both, throwing her arms as far as she could reach, ignoring the coldness of Rory's armor and the way River's curls tickled her nose. They swayed together, laughing and crying; mostly crying in Amy's case, much to her confusion, as she didn't even know where these hysterical sobs were bubbling up from.

"You all right?" asked Rory.

"Bloody hormones," was all the answer she could choke out through the tears.

"Ah."

"I think we'd better leave," said River, as the three of them came apart. As usual, she was already recovering her poise; wiping her eyes, smoothing her rumpled curls. "Since I'm the designated driver," holding up the vortex manipuator on her wrist. "Where should I take you?"

"I wanna go home," Amy sighed. Rory backed her up with a weary nod.

She surprised herself by the vehemence of her wish. During her early travels with the Doctor, she never would have believed that one day she'd be longing to return to Rory's flat in Leadworth. But that was before she'd seen the Doctor die. Before the forces of the universe had literally conspired to kidnap her, steal her newborn daughter, turn that daughter into a weapon to kill her best friend, and replace her with a middle-aged, battle-scarred stranger.

All Amy wanted was to return to a place that made sense.

"42 Shelley Street, Leadworth, England," Rory added helpfully. "2011 A. D., um … what day did we leave again?"

"April 23rd."

"April 23rd … say, ten a. m.?"

"Right." River nodded, typed in the coordinates, and held out both her arms, forcing the carefree jauntiness of a child taking her parents for a stroll. "Shall we?"

Amy and Rory linked arms with her on either side, squeezed their eyes shut, and tried to ignore the nauseating sensation of being squeezed through the time vortex like icing in a tube. Once she felt a solid surface beneath their feet, Amy opened her eyes again.

The solid surface was the dark gold carpet she had picked out with Rory, in a fit of newlywed nest-building which now felt ages behind her.

Here were the white walls, the pale wooden IKEA furniture, the framed postcard knockoffs of van Gogh's sunflowers and stars. Here were the shelves crammed with Amy's sci-fi paperbacks, Rory's medical textbooks. Here was the same old overstuffed sofa where she had watched countless films leaning on her husband's shoulder. She collapsed into that friendly sofa and rubbed her eyes, just to make sure she was not dreaming. Rory sat down next to her, not before taking off his cloak and helmet.

"Nice place you've got here," said River, picking up a cardboard TARDIS model from a shelf and twirling it in her fingers.

"We were thinking of moving out." The memory made Amy's eyes sting again, but she blinked ferociously until the feeling stopped. "It's… it would've been a bit tight for three people."

River looked away.

"I'm gonna kill that Kovarian woman, y'know." Amy's Scottish voice was quiet, almost conversational.

"Amy – " Rory began, in that soothing tone which had never been less effective at soothing her.

"No." She cut him off with an upraised hand. "I will. I'm serious. You and me and the Doctor, we are gonna hunt her down, we're gonna save Melody, and then _I_ am gonna make that eyepatch-wearing old hag wish she'd never been born. Where does she get off," her voice began rising steadily, "Where does she get the fuckin' _balls_ to take away _our_ baby – our little girl, the one I gave birth to, and nine hours of labor's bloody hard work, let me tell you! – just take her away, and then try to turn her into … into … "

She gestured sharply towards River: Stormcage inmate, Dalek killer, cat burglar, wearer of hallucinogenic lipstick. River, who could fire a gun over her shoulder and kill someone without turning around.

"You're ashamed of me," said River, with quiet gravity; only the hard lines forming around her mouth, and the exhausted way she sank into the armchair opposite Amy's sofa, hinted at what she might be feeling.

"_No!_" Amy pounded the sofa for emphasis. "No, that's – that's not what I meant! Don't ever think that, River, I … I've always looked up to you. You know that, and Rory does too, right, love?"

"Right."

Amy and Rory exchanged a look; she wondered if he was thinking about the same things she was. How River had protected Amy during that skirmish with the Weeping Angels, before Rory's tenure aboard the TARDIS. How River had helped the Doctor piece the universe back together. The heartbreak in her eyes as the Doctor's body burned.

"We're scared for you, is all," said Rory.

"Oh, my dears … " River smiled sadly and shook her head. "There's no need for you to worry about an old soldier like me. I've been taking care of myself for a long time now."

"But that's just it," snapped Amy. "Look … I can see that you're okay _now_. And I'm so proud of you, you can't think ... it's just … you know I had three lives growing up? It was that crack in my bedroom wall. The Doctor can explain it."

Rver frowned, looking confused for the first time that day. "I know … but what has that to do with anything?"

"One was with Rory, Mum and Dad," Amy recounted, "One was with Rory and Aunt Sharon when the crack erased my parents … and the third one was just with Aunt Sharon, because of Rory getting – you know." That was another mess she didn't care to elaborate on. "Anyway, my point is … d'you know which life made me happiest? The one I see as _real_, more than the others?"

Comprehension dawned on River's vivid, beautiful face.

"I promised myself it would be different," Amy continued, her hazel eyes fixed on River's gray ones across the coffee table. "That if I ever had a daughter, I wouldn't leave her home alone. I'd listen – really listen – not just drag her from one psychiatrist to the other. I'd play games with her … tell her stories about the Doctor … "

She swiped at her eyes impatiently. Shouldn't she be all cried out by now? Thinking about the life they could have had – first toddling steps, first words, make-believe sessions, laughter and tears around the teapot, arguments about fashion and curfew and school – was definitely not helping matters.

"Mother – "

She winced.

"Amy," River corrected herself. "Listen. I can't tell you when, and I can't tell you how … spoilers, you understand … but I promise your child will come home to you. I remember it happening. I was lost, and you took me in. I was hungry, and you gave me – " She smiled. "A custard cake. No fish fingers, thank goodness."

Amy and Rory smiled back fleetingly at the inside joke.

"I promise," River repeated, placing her flat palm on the table.

Her parents covered her hand with theirs, forming a three-pointed star to seal the promise.

For a moment, Amy felt transported back to her not-so-distant childhood, plotting mischief with Mels as ringleader and Rory as a reluctant third wheel. "I'll see you soon," were River's parting words as she stood up and began adjusting her vortex manipulator.

"River, wait," said Rory, in a more abrupt tone than he had used throughout the conversation.

"Yes?"

"Next time you see the Doctor … I mean the current you, not the baby you … tell him from me that if he hurts you in any way, he'll have the Last Centurion to deal with."

Judging by the military straightness of Rory's posture and the glint of steel in his eyes, it was not an empty threat. All the same, the way River threw back her head and laughed heartily at the idea (either of the Doctor hurting her, or of herself needing anyone's help to defend herself) was strangely reassuring.

"Thanks, _Daddy,_" she teased. "I'll be sure to tell him."

And with one more Cheshire-cat grin, she vanished into thin air.

As usual, for a while it felt as if the charismatic River Song had taken all the light and color from the room, leaving the atmosphere rather stale. Her young parents sat together in overwhelmed silence, each trying to reconstruct their scattered world with the newest pieces of the puzzle.

"Daddy," Rory murmured, as if trying out the sound. "My daughter, River Song … doctor of archeology …. unbelievable."

"I know."

"She still didn't tell us why she's in prison."

"No, she didn't." Amy shuddered. "D'you think she really … I mean, there's _got_ to be a misunderstanding."

"I bloody well hope so," said Rory fervently. _My daughter the murderer_ didn't sound half as good.

"Speaking of jail … think we should tell Mels?" Amy wondered wistfully what her best female friend would think of being such a brilliant woman's namesake. Mels had already missed their wedding, doing time in jail for petty theft and vandalism; surely she ought to be their for such an event as this.

"Absolutely not."

"Why not?"

"Er, Amy … don't you remember last time?"

After settling back in Leadworth after their interstellar honeymoon, Amy and Rory had rushed to tell Mels all about their adventures with the Doctor. Mels, furious about not being invited to travel with them, had stink-bombed the lobby to their building and refused to speak to them for weeks. How would she react on finding out they'd excluded her again _and_ named a child after her whom she was unable to meet

"Exactly," said Rory, catching the dismay on his wife's face. "Let's not make her anymore … unpredictable … than she already is. And we'd better not tell our own parents either. Meeting the Doctor at our wedding was hard enough."

"Oh … " Amy had never been much good at keeping secrets; now she saw them piling up like bricks, making a wall between her and the entire human community she lived in. "We're alone in this, aren't we?"

"We've still got each other." He watched her anxiously, a frown line growing between his eyebrows. "That's … something, right?"

"That _is_ something." She leaned into him gratefully.

"I've got you … and you've got me … and we've got her. No matter where she is." The slight unsteady tone of Rory's voice, consoling himself as well as Amy, only added to his sincerity.

_Gotcha. _Amy thought of the catchphrase she used to trade with Rory, Mels or the Doctor when they needed comforting, along with a big hug. How had that started anyway?

"Rory?"

"Hm?"

"D'you think she – River – is really the Doctor's future wife?"

Rory turned pink. "I'm trying _not_ to think about that, actually. How can she flirt like that in front of … well, _us?_"

A thought crashed into Amy's mind with all the force of a runaway TARDIS. She covered her mouth and looked over at her husband with wide, guilty eyes.

"Oh. My. God."

"What?"

"I think I snogged my future son-in-law!"

Rory knew about the post-Weeping-Angel kiss, having heard it from a flustered Doctor himself at the beginning of his TARDIS tenure, but he hadn't stopped to consider it in this context before. The idea struck them both as ridiculous, and they burst out laughing – they laughed until the apartment rang, until their throats were hoarse, until Amy's sweaty fringe stuck to her forehead and Rory insisted on getting them both a glass of water. They laughed until tears came to their eyes – the final tears of that long, heartbreaking, exhilarating, and very tiring day.


	16. Making Amends

Making Amends

"Doctor, stop," said Rory.

The Time Lord, halfway out the door to the TARDIS console room, skittered to a halt and peered over his shoulder.

"Turn around," Rory asked, quietly but firmly. "Please. Take us to when Mels – River –wakes up."

Melody Pond, alias River Song, was at the House of the Infinite Schism, the best hospital in the universe according to the Doctor, for giving up all her regenerations in one go to save the man she had killed. The Doctor, being that man, understandably wanted to put as much distance between them as possible ("For a first date, those are really mixed signals"), but Rory Williams needed to see his daughter one more time, and he wasn't giving up.

The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "But didn't I tell you? We have to let her - "

"Make her own way now, yes, yes," Amy interrupted, rolling her eyes at the Doctor, then smiling at Rory in gratitude for making the request. "I understand. But that doesn't mean we can't talk to her … I mean, she's our _daughter._ Since you don't have children, maybe you don't understand … "

The Doctor's face darkened to such a degree that Amy could not finish her sentence. They held each other's eyes for a long moment as Rory circled around the console to put an arm around his wife.

Finally the Doctor broke eye contact, spun around with a flourish, and began pressing buttons and flipping switches with his usual air of a manic church organist. "There," he said after a few seconds, with a sweeping gesture toward the front door and a conciliatory smile. "The Healers said she'd take what, two or three days? Not sure how long you'd have to wait, though … oh, and you don't mind if I stay back here, do you? To give you three Ponds a bit of privacy. What with all those, er, 'mixed signals', I wouldn't want to upset her. Or myself, come to that."

"We'll be careful," Rory promised. "Won't we, Amy?"

He meant to give a warning look to his impulsive wife, but she already stood by the front door, fidgeting with her scarf.

"You coming or what?" She pouted.

-DW-

It only took about twenty minutes for Melody to wake up, but for the two people sitting by her hospital bed, talking in whispers and squeezing each other's hands, it felt like a small eternity. All the same, when her eyes fluttered open, it felt too soon; they realized acutely that neither of them knew what to say.

"Where's the Doctor?" Melody whispered.

"In the TARDIS," said Amy, grateful for the breaking of the silence. "Alive and kicking and crazy as ever."

A slow smile lit up Melody's face. "It worked, then?"

"It worked." Rory wore the same look of loving exasperation he had so often shown to Amy and Melody when they were teenagers. "But seriously … _all_ your regenerations in one go? Couldn't you have given him just, I dunno, half of them? If anything happens to you now, you'll … "

"Die," she finished serenely. "I know … but don't worry, Mum, Dad. I like this body, especially the hair. I have no intention of giving it up for a long time yet."

Rory sighed. "We can't help worrying. We're your parents, it's in the job description."

"Hmm, I suppose it is." Melody closed her eyes for a moment and snuggled into her sheets.

After a long pause, she opened her eyes again and fixed them on Amy, who was sitting closer. "I'm sorry," she said.

"For what?" Amy replied, in an equally small voice.

"For making you worry … not only today, but our whole lives growing up. For being such a – what was that word I used? – psychopath."

"The definition of a psychopath," said Rory, in a firm, authoritative voice in contrast to the gentle way he touched his daughter's hand on the white bedspread, "Is defined as someone who feels no empathy for others and no remorse for their actions. Today – no, wait, three days ago on your end – you proved beyond a doubt that that doesn't apply to you."

"But I killed him," Melody insisted. "He was a good man, and I killed him, and I _still_ don't remember why."

"The Silence," Amy interrupted. "The Tessalecta crew said you were programmed by the Silence. We've met them before, me and Rory and the Doctor and – and that's how they work. They give ye orders, then make ye forget they exist, so ye think the order was your own idea, aye? So ye were brainwashed, tha's all."

Her Scottish accent thickened as she sat there, her hands clenched in her miniskirted lap, fiercely defending Melody even now.

"Did you know?" asked Melody. "Is that why … why you wouldn't let the Justice Department punish me?"

Amy nodded.

"You could've blown up that entire ship." Melody flashed a smirk of wry admiration. "I really am my mother's daughter, aren't I?"

Amy's answering smile was somewhat shaky; Melody's screams as she was caught in the Tessalecta's flames were a nightmare she'd never forget. _That woman is my daughter … _It was also the first time she'd acknowledged their relationship to strangers. It felt like a milestone, though she didn't know why.

"So … does that make me the only sane man?" Rory joked.

"Nah," his wife and daughter chorused.

"You're as mad as the rest of us, Roranicus Pondicus," said Amy, ruffling his hair. "And that's a compliment."

"Thanks … I _think_." Possibly to distract them, he handed Melody the TARDIS-blue diary, wrapped in its red ribbon, which had been sitting unnoticed on her nightstand all along. "By the way, the Doctor left you this."

She held it up, surveyed it contentedly, tore off the ribbon in one smooth efficient movement, and opened to the first page.

"_To the magnificent River Song,_" she read aloud. _"May your life be the greatest story you ever write_. Two kisses. Signed, _The Doctor._"

"You could say it's a present from the TARDIS as well," said Amy. "She … she likes you."

"She really does, doesn't she?" Melody surveyed her own strong, freckled hands with a confused frown, as if remembering how the TARDIS had guided them so well. "She said I was her child … you never did answer my question, actually. What did she mean?"

"She means you were, um … " Rory's awkward gallantry made it impossible to say the words, so Amy chimed in, although even she had to blush.

"You were – conceived – on the TARDIS. That's why you have Time Lord DNA. So the TARDIS is like, sort of, your third parent … or … something."

"A-_ha!_" Melody raised a wicked eyebrow. "Conceived on the TARDIS … so I guess you two joined the Mile High Club, then? Or should that be Lightyear High?"

"Shut up!" Amy giggled and whacked the pillow next to Melody's head.

"Try not to think about it," was the mortified Rory's suggestion. "Anyway … change of subject … ahem. Obviously the Doctor will keep calling you River Song." He tapped the diary with one finger. "But what would you like _us_ to call you? Mels? River? Melody?"

"Hey, how do I get that silly name anyway?" Melody chuckled. "Sounds like an Enya CD."

Amy took Lorna Bucket's prayer leaf, which she superstitiously carried everywhere she went, out of her jacket pocket. The TARDIS, parked outside the room, was well within translating range, so when Melody set eyes on the leaf, she read the embroidered words in English.

"Someone gave me this as a good luck charm when you were born," Amy explained. "To keep my baby safe. But where this person came from, the only water is the river … "

" … so now I'm River Song." She laughed again and shrugged. "You know what? I've been called much worse. River it is."

"You sure?"

A shared childhood and adolescence must have made Rory's faint disappointment easy to read.

"I don't mean to reject the name you gave me," River amended. "It's a lovely name, really. I just … I don't like the person I became while using it."

"I understand," said Rory, the clouds in his eyes clearing up. Amy picked up the prayer leaf, folded it with careful hands, and tucked it back into her denim jacket.

"The Doctor's waiting," said River, stroking the front cover of her new diary.

"Is that a hint for us to bugger off?" said Amy lightly.

"Yes. Yes, it is. No offense, but any more heart-to-heart chats and I'm going to fall back asleep."

"Right then." With a brisk nod, Amy stood up from the plastic chair, gesturing for Rory to follow.

"We'll come back," Rory declared. "We'll see you again."

River's eyes twinkled with familiar deviltry, and in spite of her dissimilar features, he saw immediately where she got it from. "Not if I see you first. Oh, and tell the Doctor – I haven't forgotten about our deal."

"What deal?"

"He promised to marry me if I survived Hitler's shot, remember? Don't think he can wiggle out of this one … "

The last thing Amy and Rory heard of their impossible daughter as they left the room was a low, sultry laugh.


	17. Searching For Donna

Searching For Donna

"D … D … Doctor."

The Eleventh Doctor looked up from his banana sundae and waved his hand impatiently at the man in front of him, a nondescript Caucasian Human whose only distinctive feature was his stammer.

"Sorry, no time," he said casually. "I'm waiting for someone."

They were in an ice cream parlor on Disneyland Clom in the 51st century, and he had a date with River Song. An unusual honeymoon destination, perhaps, but then who cared for usual? Just as he was thinking this, however, the stranger startled him by holding up what was unmistakably River's diary. A battered, yellowed, very full edition of River's diary.

"Give me that!" snapped the Doctor, making a grab for it. "That's _private_, you have no right – "

The stranger stepped back, shaking his head. His hazel eyes met the Doctor's with firm determination.

"S-sorry," he said. "But … I need your help. This was … the only way to f … find you."

"Where did you get that anyway?" The Doctor looked the stranger up and down: tall, broad-shouldered, civilian clothing (a green windbreaker and jeans); close to forty by his face.

"Found it," said the human. "Library."

He didn't look fit enough to take down someone like River, but appearances could be deceiving. If this man had harmed his wife in any way – wait …

"The _Library_?" The Doctor bounced off his plastic counter stool and stood eye to eye with the man. "The planet Library? The one that's been closed for a hundred years, infested with flesh-eating shadow piranhas, where no sane life form could possibly want to go? _That _Library?"

The stranger nodded. And if the Doctor had been off-balance before, the question he asked next was enough to send him reeling several steps back, making fellow customers stare and the saleswoman reach for her stun dart beneath the counter.

"Where – is – Donna – Noble?"

His thin, careworn features blazed as he spoke the words; his eyes were hard as steel. He recognized that look; he had seen it in Rory Williams, donning Roman armor to confront an army of Cybermen. He had seen it in fifty-seven-year-old Amy Pond, wielding her katana like a dancer. He had seen it in River on their wedding day, telling him she would suffer more than all the universe if she were forced to kill him. He had seen it in himself.

"I'm sorry," said the Doctor, lowering his eyes. "I'm so, so sorry."

He remembered Donna now, telling him about the wonderful husband CAL's data core had created for her. _Gorgeous, adored me and barely spoke a word … what does that say about me?_ So Lee McAvoy was a real man after all. Here he stood, incandescent with hope, and it was his – the Doctor's – role to destroy that hope once and for all.

"Please help me find her, Doctor," Lee continued, his nervousness around the Doctor giving way to a level of emotion too deep to affect his speech. "Please. We were married for seven years in that data core, we had children together – simulated children, but still. They were as real to me as anyone I've ever known. She used to read Dr. Seuss to them in the evenings, doing all the voices at first, then getting softer and softer until they fell asleep. She used to tease me about my stutter, but kindly, as if it wasn't a defect at all, just a part of me. She'd say, _Start with a vowel, they're easy_ – I can see her now, laughing, with raindrops in her hair.

"You're a married man, Doctor – again, I'm sorry I read your wife's diary, but Mr. Lux told me Donna was your assistant, so you're my only lead on finding her. If you'd lost Professor Song, Doctor, and you'd made a promise – a _promise_ – to find each other, is there anything you wouldn't do to get her back? I'm asking you, Doctor. Is there?"

The Doctor sat back down and raked a hand through his floppy hair, feeling old and tired. This phantom of his past was making all his tenth self's mannerisms come back, and its worst memories along with it. _Oh, Donna_. He should have known he could not outrun her forever.

"You, Lee McAvoy," he said, "Are a good man. Every bit as good as she said you were. There's nothing I'd enjoy more than bringing the two of you together again … but I'm afraid there are complications."

He made a full confession to Lee, who listened with increasing horror in his eyes. He explained how Donna had been accidentally transformed into a Human-Timelord hybrid, and how it would have killed her if the Doctor hadn't erased all her memories from their first adventure onward. How if she remembered the glory she had seen, the truly noble woman she had become, even for a moment, she would burn to death from the inside out.

He did not, however, tell Lee that Donna had begged to die. That was something no one should have to hear about their loved ones.

Lee stared down at the shiny white countertop for a very long time, dry-eyed, unmoving. It took several tries before his slow tongue would even let him make a sound; the Doctor waited patiently until he could.

"It's … alright," he finally said.

The Doctor was stunned.

"Even if sh … she forgot me," Lee continued, "I still … remember her. I'll ch-change my name. Start over s-someplace new. I've nowhere else to go; after a hundred years in the Library, my family and friends are all g … gone. I'll be careful, Doctor. I p-promise. You may have n-noticed I'm … not very eloquent. It makes me very good at keeping secrets."

"Oh, but wait a minute – I forgot!" the Doctor exclaimed. "She's already married someone else – her grandfather told me. To some bloke named, what was it? … Temple. Sean Temple."

The last thing he expected was for a tiny grin to light up Lee's face, transforming it entirely. _He'd make a decent companion,_ thought the Doctor. _Well, of course he would. I'd expect nothing less of Donna Noble's husband._

"Sean Temple is my pen name," said Lee, explaining his smile. "I was a s-satirist during the Fourth Reich. There's … a lot you don't know about me."

The Doctor stared … laughed .. slapped Lee heartily on the back. He'd seen the wedding at a distance just before regenerating, but had not got a proper look at the groom. Well, no wonder. Another wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey coindicence, as Ten had been so fond of saying. River would have a field day when he told her.

On a more sober note, Donna's fate had haunted him from the moment she had collapsed into his arms after their mind-meld, her cheeks still wet with tears. This high-handed way he had of ordering people's lives was one of his greatest flaws, he knew; letting her die had been unacceptable, but taking her memories may have been even worse. Watching Amy and Rory in the other reality – General Pond and Captain Williams, without a single spark of recognition – had brought this home to him.

Amy had joked once about the current Doctor being a matchmaker. As he saw it, after all he had taken from Donna, bringing her beloved home to her was the least he could do.

"Well, come along, Mr. Temple-Noble," he declared grandly. "What are we waiting for?"


	18. Someone Important

Someone Important

1. This is an alternate ending to the episode "A Christmas Carol" and may not make sense without it.

2. A camellia is a flower; Camellia Syndrome is a name I invented to refer to the Lady of the Camellias, a character in an opera who wastes away from a vaguely defined disease without losing any of her beauty, which was a common cliche in Victorian fiction.

/

"Are you all right?" asked Amy.

"Of course. You?"

The Doctor lingered in the TARDIS' doorframe, the direction of his gaze giving the lie to his brusque words. Amy saw what he was looking at – Kazran and Abigail holding the broken screwdriver together as she sang into it – and, like another redhead he had known, saw right through his defense.

"It'll be their last day together, won't it?" she asked.

_One last day with your beloved, _Kazran had asked him, his aged voice rough with tears. _Which one would you choose?_ All things considered, saving a starship crew of four thousand and three people with her magnificent voice made for a very fitting last day, as Abigail herself admitted. She was willing to make the sacrifice, and so was Kazran. But something about the two of them – the frail old man and the golden-haired woman in white, his hand enfolding hers as she held the screwdriver, her hand cupping his cheek, the snowflakes glittering in the lamplight around them – refused to let him go.

The Doctor thought of another golden girl, holding hands with a spiky-haired man in a trenchcoat and Converses, in a snowfall just like this one. _Go and kiss her, Kazran. Don't make my mistakes_. He thought of a swarm of golden healing particles and a joyful swing dance around the TARDIS console room. _Everybody lives … _

"Last day? Ha! Not if I can help it," he declared, spinning exuberantly as his energy returned. From the corner of his eye, he caught sight of Amy's relieved grin. He grinned back over his shoulder – _You knew I wouldn't let you down, did you, Pond? _– and strode across the street as quickly as his long legs would carry him, his Gallifreyan brain whirring madly to make up for far too many hours (or decades, from her perspective) of inaction.

"Oi!" He tapped Abigail firmly on the shoulder, making both of them turn around. Since the cloud layer was already stabilized, he reasoned there was no harm in interrupting her song.

"What is it, Doctor?" she asked, still smiling faintly from the afterglow of the music.

"Remember when we met? When I introduced myself as the Doctor and you asked if I was one of yours? Well" – he flung out his hands – "Tonight, I am!"

Kazran and Abigail exchanged glances, then looked back at the Doctor; the latter frowning in confusion, the former's eyes brimming with intense and painful hope.

"What do you mean?" asked Kazran.

"Well, just look at you!" The Doctor's hand swept up and down, taking in Abigail's strong posture, rosy cheeks, glossy hair and most of all, a voice powerful enough to tame a shark and calm a storm. "You're the picture of health! If there's anything wrong with you, either it's some _very _insidious disease that doesn't show symptoms until the last day, or your physician is a quack whose license should be revoked. And judging by this planet – no offense, Kazran – I suspect it's the latter. And in that case, Abigail Pettigrew, you're owed about sixty or seventy stolen years. It's time you got them back."

Abigail gripped Kazran's arm, turning pale, more shaken by the possibility of a cure than she had been by the certainty of death.

"Dr. Marley said it was Camellia Syndrome," she said, joining the Doctor's brainstorming session in thinking out loud. "It _doesn't_ show until the last day, and it's incurable. There was an epidemic in our neighborhood that year … "

"Marley?" Kazran snarled, his eyes glittering for a moment with their old malice. "You mean Jacob Marley – the one who couldn't breathe without asking Father for permission? In this 'epidemic', now, how many patients ended up as part of our Surplus Population?"

"But he is – was – the most qualified physician in the city," Abigail argued. "We _trusted_ him. He couldn't have … "

" … Couldn't have fabricated an illness to encourage people to come to Elliot Sardick for a loan?" Kazran finished. "Or even infected you deliberately? I don't blame you, my dear," touching her hand, which still held his arm. "If I hadn't been such a heartsick little fool when you told me, I wouldn't have seen it either. But one thing I've learned since then is never to underestimate the depths to which a being will sink for money."

Abigail shook her head in silent denial, looking really ill for the first time since their acquaintance. The Doctor, as much to distract her as to help, clapped his hands to get them both to pay attention.

"Anyway," he said, "Since I've already made a hash of both your timelines, which for once are flexible enough to take it, I said to myself: what good is it having a TARDIS if it can't bring you to a hospital? I know just the place. Best hospital in the universe. Run by talking cats, but you don't mind that, do you? Well, come along!"

He held out one hand to each of them, bubbling with energy from head to toe. It was a heady feeling, preparing to help someone. His own personal drug.

Abigail startled him by ignoring his offered hand in order to hug him instead. Her long blond hair fell over his shoulder in an achingly familiar way. He hadn't been hugged like this in a long time … was it since his tenth incarnation?

"Thank you, Doctor," she told him in her warm and musical voice. "You saved Kazran's soul, and now you're saving my life. To see my sister again, to watch my niece and nephew grow up … How can we possibly repay you?"

His current self was not quite as good with hugs. He squirmed away as soon as good manners allowed, smoothed his hair and took a giant step back.

"Repay me? Oh, rubbish," he said lightly. "I'm the Doctor. It's my job. Now, before you really _do_ come down with something in that flimsy dress, not to mention Officer Pond," he gestured towards a scowling, miniskirted Amy still watching them by the TARDIS, "We'd better get a move on."

Which they did, without delay.

/

Abigail opened her eyes, not to Kazran's and the Doctor's beaming faces as had become the custom, but to a white ceiling, soft bedsheets and a crisp smell of apples. It took her a moment to recognize the elderly gentleman sitting by her bed, but when she did, she smiled.

"Hello, Kazran."

"How do you feel?" he asked in a hush.

"Wonderful." It was true. She was warm, well rested (_very_ well rested) and looking up into the kind blue eyes of her best friend in all the world. "Any news?"

"Well, once again, my mad babysitter was right," he remarked. "The nurses tell me you never had Camellia Syndrome. Damn that Marley … I wish I _could_ have had his license revoked. Pity he died first."

This Kazran, she realized, would take a while to get used to. He had obviously suffered - it was written in every line of his face – and just as obviously, he'd taken on a harsh and cynical demeanor to defend himself. She understood, but she still missed the Kazran she had known.

Catching something in her eyes, perhaps a criticism, he drew back a bit and gave a self-deprecating shrug. Now that, she recognized; it was the same shrug he'd used at sixteen to apologize for blushing at the sight of her.

"Oh, don't mind me," he said. "I've been told I'm quite the grumpy bugger these days."

"I don't mind," she told him, reaching up to trace the lines of his face. "If I could deal with you during puberty, I'm sure I can do it now."

Kazran shook his gray head, evidently struggling to wrap his mind around this latest twist to their already strange relationship.

"I can't believe how _young_ you look now," he said after a pause. "I remember you as the woman who gave me my first kiss. Today … you could be my granddaughter."

"I remember _you _as the little boy in the plaid pyjamas," she retorted. "This is just as strange for me."

She missed that innocent little boy. She missed the idealistic teenager holding her hand at her sister's Christmas dinner, and especially the man who had kissed her with such desperation at that Hollywood party. He'd gone so far ahead of her this time, too far for her ever to catch up. They could never be young lovers again, and he knew it; why else would he look down at her so wistfully?

"You do realize you'll likely outlive me now, don't you?" he said.

Trust Kazran to stumble into the hardest truth he could find. She hadn't even considered that yet. Secretly, she had always been rather relieved to go first, because she wouldn't have to experience his loss. Now, what did she have? A short time together – ten or twenty years, at most – and then a lifetime to mourn by herself.

_Now that's selfish, Abigail,_ her conscience scolded her, sounding suspiciously like her sister. _Why don't we count our blessings and thank God for what we have?_

"Don't worry," she told him lovingly. "We have enough time. More time than I ever thought we'd have, since ... since I was first frozen. And even afterwards, I hope ... I believe it will be all right. I'm stronger than I look, you know."

"Yes," said Kazran, smoothing her hair with a gentleness that had not changed at all. "You certainly are."


	19. Mother Of The Bride

Mother Of The Bride

When we were kids, people used to say that Mels and I were like two peas in a pod. That we could've been twins if she weren't black and I weren't Scottish. We were loud and wild and sexy, out looking for trouble and usually finding it. Then after Hitler's Berlin, when me and Rory found out that our friend Mels, our daughter and River Song were all the same person, once we were done freaking out about it, he rolled his eyes at me and was like, _Well, no wonder. _She uses kissing to get her way (for me it was a job, for her it's a weapon) and she's not afraid to take charge, with a gun if necessary. Or a well placed iDrive.

So, I know River takes after me. But tonight, standing on a pyramid in my black uniform, watching my grown-up daughter face the most important moment of her life, it's not myself I see reflected in her eyes. It's someone so much better.

"You've decided the universe is better off without you," she tells the Doctor. "But the universe doesn't agree. I can't let you die without knowing you are loved, by so many, and so much … and by no one more than me."

"River, you and I, we know what this means," the Doctor argues. "We are ground zero of an explosion that will engulf all reality. Billions and billions will suffer and die!"  
><strong><br>"**I'll suffer if I have to kill you."  
><strong><br>"**More than _every living thing in the universe_?"

She hesitates, but her whispered answer when it comes is certain.

"Yes."

The Doctor turns away from her and frowns.

"River, River … why did you have to be this? Melody Pond. _Your_ daughter. I hope you're both proud."

He's being sarcastic, but actually I am. I can't speak for Rory, who barely even knows her right now, but I'm proud. It's bloody selfish of her, we all know that. But if you had the choice between killing people you've never met, even billions, and killing the love of your life, honestly, who wouldn't choose like River?

Tonight, I see my daughter's dignity, her quiet strength, her stubborn, single-minded, limitless loyalty to the one she loves. I see Rory in her. She has never looked more beautiful to me.

My Rory. Captain Williams. There he is on my arm right now, adorably clueless as usual, and with my ripple-proof memory I've got to explain to him that River is our kid from an alternate reality, and he just says, "Okay," accepting it with a stunned kind of grace. I can't believe he was right under my nose all this time (again!) and I didn't even recognize him until he faced the Silence with his iDrive activated. Fighting through all that pain like it didn't exist, just so he'd be "of use" to me. I've been an idiot, but it's not too late for us.

The Doctor orders me to uncuff him, pulls off his bow tie, hands one end to River, and has Rory and me repeat the words "I consent and gladly give". It's a handfasting ritual, like they used to do in Scotland, and even now I'm still amazed at the Doctor's multitasking brain. I remember, the first time I met River – what I _thought_ was the first time, when she sent us after those Weeping Angels – I sort of teased her about being the Doctor's future wife. It was the way she hung up her shoes on the TARDIS and called him Sweetie, and the schoolboyish way he blushed. Since then, I've often wondered if that was ever going to happen, and if it did, whether Rory and I would get to see it. I admit I sometimes pictured cake, and shopping for dresses, and putting the veil on her before the ceremony – normal mother of the bride stuff. Except, of course, River and the Doctor don't do normal. I should've known.

But this? This is wrong. A wedding shouldn't be a murder. He shouldn't use one to make the other happen. But I know why he's doing it, I understand, and oh, that's the worst part – I admire him for it. If he weren't prepared to give up his own life, even break my daughter's heart, to save all of time and every living thing, he wouldn't be the man she loves.

But maybe, a little voice tells me - the tiny bit of fairytale Amelia that's still left under all of Agent Pond's experience - maybe that's not the reason. Maybe she'd still agree to this for his sake, to starting time, saving the universe, even killng him. Maybe the real reason he's choosing to marry her is just because he wants to. In which case, I consent and gladly give.

"There you go. River Song, Melody Pond, you're the woman who married me. And wife, I have a request. This world is dying, and it's my fault, and I can't bear it another day. Please … help me. There isn't another way."

So I watch him kiss the bride, and the two of them shine with a light so blinding I have to turn away. I hold on to Rory – my second-in-command, my best friend, my husband, my love – close my eyes, and pray to a half forgotten God that when time starts moving, we'll see each other again.


	20. Deja Vu

Deja Vu

_(Note: This story takes place after the episode "Journey's End.)_

They met in a hospital – again. Except in this case, it was the private medical facility of Torchwood Headquarters, and he only had one life to spend (which meant, he realized in hindsight, he really should have been more careful). He had never been more astonished in his short existence than he was to see _her_, of all people, looking down at him with that familiar frown of concentration between her eyebrows.

"_Martha?_"

"That's me. Something wrong with my name?" She glanced down irritably at the name tag on her white lab coat, which read _Dr. Martha Jones_. And Martha it was, just as he remembered her: slim, petite, with bright black eyes and skin the color of molten caramel. Only her hair was different: still in a ponytail, but naturally curly instead of ironed straight.

Jack Noble, formerly known as the Doctor (he couldn't call himself John Smith, not after a schoolteacher from 1913 had died with that name), tried to suppress an irrational ache of disappointment. Of course she didn't know him. This was the alternate Martha Jones, native to this universe. She had never set eyes on him in her life.

"No, no, sorry!" he hurried to say. "Nothing's wrong. I haven't met many Marthas, that's all. Liked them all, though."

He grinned up at her; she smiled back.

"Jack Noble," he introduced himself. "Pleasure to meet you. I'd shake your hand, but uh … "

He glanced down at his right arm, which was caught in a sling, and winced as the pain caught up with him. "Note to self: bring backup next time," he muttered.

Looking back at Martha, he saw her eyes widen and her jaw drop; she looked almost as surprised as he had felt a moment ago.

"So _you're_ Miss Tyler's – "

"_Ex_-boyfriend," he corrected pointedly.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't've – it's none of my business."

"No, that's all right. Gossip's a free action, after all."

The break-up was six months ago now. It had been a mutual decision: Rose had refused to settle for a consolation prize instead of the real thing, and Jack had refused to _be_ said consolation prize. It annoyed him that, even now, people referred to him as _Miss Tyler's [insert awkward silence]_, as if they couldn't finish the phrase without sounding impolite. Miss Tyler's alien stray from another universe. Miss Tyler's rejected property. He was his own person, thank you very much.

Martha must have caught the anger in his eyes, because she opened her mouth and closed it again as if holding back a second apology. Instead she began briskly questioning him about his injuries, and he answered as best he could, thankful to get the conversation back on neutral ground.

He did, however, have one last non-professional question left. It popped out of his mouth almost before he was aware of it, and not until after it was said out loud did he think, _Why yes, what a brilliant idea._

"Would you care to go out for coffee sometime, Dr. Jones?"

Her smile warmed his single human heart. It was just the smile he remembered from his early days with her counterpart, that sudden burst of joy in her normally serious face. How had he forgotten just how beautiful she was? Or had he simply refused to see it until now?

"Never with my patients," she teased.

"I meant _after_ my recovery. Then I won't be your patient anymore, will I?"

"Good point," she said mock-thoughtfully. "I'll have to get back to you on that one."

She fluffed his pillow for him, leaning in just a little closer than necessary. Beneath the disinfectant, he could smell lily-of-the-valley; a different scent from the one he remembered. How much else was different about her? But then, he wasn't exactly the same either.

This could be tricky, he thought … but so much the more interesting.


	21. Body Language

Body Language

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

_Note: This story contains spoilers for Episode 7.1, "Asylum of the Daleks"._

"So – are we back together now?"

The question burst out of Rory as soon as they were alone in their old room on the TARDIS, as if holding it back in the Doctor's presence (and out of respect for the memory of Oswin Oswald) had been a painful, physical effort.

"Of course," said Amy, green eyes wide with the surprise that, after being kissed with such intensity he almost forgot the explosions around him, he still had to ask.

He sighed and shook his head, even as his smile of relief made him look about ten years younger.

"Oh, Amy … how many times do I haves to remind you? I don't speak kiss-o-gram. If you have something to tell me, _talk_ to me! Preferably before going to a lawyer."

She collapsed on the edge of the lower bunk, running her hand over the blanket to avoid looking at him.

"You'd have argued," she said, in that small voice that, for all her twenty-six years, adventures, motherhood and successful modelling career, still made him see her as the lonely little girl he had loved all his life.

"Of course I'd have argued." He sat next to her and put an arm around her shoulders, feeling the sheer luxury of touching her again after all those months apart. "I'd never give you up without a fight."

She met his eyes directly for the first time, tears clinging to her eyelashes. "Not even if it means your dream will never come true?"

"Which dream?"

"The psychic pollen." She sniffed. "Don't you remember? You dreamed that I was pregnant … we had a nursery with yellow walls … and you got to feed me raw biscuit batter and, and panic when I thought I was in labor … the last thing you said to me was to look after our baby. Even though it wasn't even _real._" Her tears were coming thick and fast now as she buried her face in her hands. "We … never … had that … with Melody. And now we never will!"

She buried her head in his shoulder and sobbed, letting him rock her back and forth as his own tears streamed silently down his face. He _had_ thought of this, and it did hurt him. The idea that middle-aged, jaded River Song with her arbitrary visits – much as they liked her – was the only biological child he would ever have, was an undeniable loss.

However, one did not work at a hospital, travel with the Doctor, and spend two thousand years guarding the Pandorica without gaining some perspective. Rory had seen – and done – worse than this. It was up to him to convince Amy.

"I don't suppose," he said, once the blanket was scattered with tissues and they had both calmed down enough to talk, "You've ever considered adoption?"

"What?" Amy frowned. "You think … ? But it wouldn't be the _same_."

"I know what you mean." He thought of dream-Amy's rounded belly, her glowing face, even her Scotch temper under the influence of hormones.

"But look at it this way: how many other Melodys are out there, living in orphanages or foster care without anyone to really care for them? We could make a home for one – or several, even."

"Rory?"

"He or she could sleep in one of the guest rooms – you know, the one that looks over the garden? There's a daycare just a few blocks away, and I could switch to working part-time – "

"Rory – "

"Of course it would take a lot of planning, but we've got time, don't we? One more round on the TARDIS, like the Doctor said, see a few planets – _safe_ planets, mind you – and once we've got time - "

"_Rory!_"

She grabbed him by the collar, kissed him, and beamed. "Shut up."

It was the first time he'd seen her smiling since … he didn't even know how long. He had forgotten just how breathtaking it was: her green eyes sparkling, even the tear tracks on her cheeks shining like a waterfall in the sun. He could look at her for hours.

Still, it would not do to get their wires crossed again. He cleared his throat, calling on his finest irony to keep that smile on her face.

"Translation, please? Is that 'shut up, we're doing it', 'shut up, we're _not_ doing it', or 'shut up, drop the subject and let's make love for the first time in six months'?"

"We're doing it." She touched his cheek, as cautiously as she had done by the fire, just before finally remembering his name. "You're a genius, Rory Williams."

"I know."

"And the lovemaking idea isn't bad either."

She scrunched her face into a frown of mock thoughtfulness, as if considering a new idea for one of her perfumes, even as he watched her eyes grow dark and soft. Communication notwithstanding, he knew enough of her body language to know she was as eager for this as he was. It was his turn to smile.

"Lock the door, would you please?"

"As you wish."


	22. Blame

Blame

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"Doctor?" said Rory, leaning on the TARDIS console with his arms folded.

"Hmm?" The Doctor, lying on his back to make repairs, scooted out from underneath said console and blinked up at his father-in-law with innocent green eyes. He had a hammer in one hand, his sonic screwdriver in the other, and his hair was sticking up in all directions. He hardly seemed like the right person to hear what Rory had to say, but he needed to say it nonetheless. Besides, with Amy taking a nap in their old room, this was the only opportunity they'd have for a one-to-one conversation before their return home.

"Amy was right about you," said Rory.

"Of course she was." The Doctor flashed a smile, which disappeared at the sight of Rory's grave expression. "Clever girl, that wife of yours. About what, specifically?"

"That you've been travelling alone too long."

The Doctor's eyes turned cold and remote, then moved out of sight as he disappeared under the console. Rory, however, knew him too well to be so easily discouraged.

"You think your enemies' victims died because of _your mercy_? I knew you had a massive ego, Doctor, but that really takes the cake."

The Doctor emerged to fire another glare, this one positively bone-chilling. Rory was reminded of the Dream Lord, and involuntarily held on to the edges of his jacket.

"You wouldn't understand," said the Doctor. "I _am_ responsible. I had a chance to kill the Daleks, once. To erase them from history, as if they'd never existed. If I'd done that, my own people … my own _family_ would still be alive. But oh no, I couldn't stomach the idea of wiping out another race. And so I showed them mercy … and they went on to start the Great Time War. So many worlds, all burned to ashes, so many races slaughtered. Including mine. I killed them all, Rory. The Daleks _and_ the Time Lords. It was a choice between them and the rest of the universe. What else could I have done?"

Rory took a deep, silent breath at the horror of it all, related in an almost mechanical voice. Even his travels with the Doctor had not prepared him to imagine war on such an enormous scale.

"You don't know what it's like to hold countless lives in your hands, only to destroy them. I won't be judged, Rory Williams, not by you or any other human. You couldn't possibly know."

Rory drew himself up. Strong as his pity was for the haunted soldier before him, he would not let it stop him from speaking his mind for the Doctor's own good.

"But you forget, Doctor. I wasn't always human."

He looked down at his right hand, now flesh and blood, which had once contained an Auton cannon. In his dreams, he still saw Amy's eyes widen with shock as the bullet pierced her heart, her body falling back, the ring box tumbling to the ground.

"I've killed people. For self-defense, mostly, and to protect the Pandorica, but I always used to wonder – still do, sometimes – if most of those deaths were necessary. Maybe if I'd been less pragmatic, more open-minded – more like you, actually – I could have sorted things out peacefully. Like just now, with Jex. I was ready to hand him over. I needed Amy's calling-out as much as you did."

He frowned, remembering how certain he had been that the safety of his wife and the eighty-one residents of Mercy was worth Kahler Jex's death. His former self would never have been so quick to condemn anyone, even a war criminal. He thanked his stars for Amy's fierce compassion; every day, he found new reasons to love her.

"I lived through history: the fires of Rome, the Crusades, the bubonic plague … I tried to help, I tried, but there was only so much I could do without screwing up history. I came _this_ close to making penicillin two thousand years early. You told me it would drive me mad. It almost did."

He stopped himself, not wanting to descend into self-pity, but judging by his expression, the Doctor understood him perfectly. They both knew how it felt to be held back from what they loved most – helping others – by the demands of Time.

"But two things kept me going," Rory continued, "The first was Amy: keeping her safe, talking to her, knowing every day was one day closer to our wedding. The second thing was remembering who was to blame."

The Doctor opened his mouth, perhaps to defend himself against the acusation he expected, but Rory held up his formerly lethal hand.

"It wasn't you, Doctor, and it wasn't me. It was the Silence who killed Amy, tried to trap you and made me what I was. Feel guilty for the people you killed if you have to, but never for the ones you were protecting. And never, ever, blame yourself for showing mercy.

"Don't make yourself responsible for the whole universe, Doctor. No one is – unless there's a God, and we can't really prove that, can we?"

Rory asked just to be certain, but the Doctor shook his head. The Time Lord's eyes had softened considerably as he listened; in fact, they were so bright, Rory could have sworn that his alien friend was close to tears.

"Oh, Rory … Rory Pond. Rory the Roman." The Doctor's smile was shaky, like ripples in a pool. "Did you notice you're speaking Latin?"

"Am I?"

The nonsequitur confused him until he heard the strangeness of his own words in his mouth. This was the drawback (or the advantage, depending on your point of view) to travelling in a ship which translated every language. He recognized the Doctor's change of subject as the avoidance tactic it was, but also as his eccentric show of friendship – possibly even guilt, which his expansive soul could not help feeling in spite of Rory's advice.

"Oops, sorry. Yeah, that happens sometimes." He shrugged, returning to his 21st-century English self as easily as the immortal Doctor could turn into a silly young man. "Again – the whole Roman thing? Not your fault."

His son-in-law scrambled to his feet, touched Rory's shoulder, and looked at him for a long moment. _Thank you,_ his eyes said.

"When Amelia first told me you were engaged, well … I thought she could do better," he said instead, smiling faintly. "I've never been so glad to be proved wrong."


	23. This Won't Hurt

This Won't Hurt

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

_Author's Note: This piece was inspired by two matching scenes from "The Time of Angels" and "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship", in which the lines "This won't hurt … I lied" are spoken respectively by River to Amy, and by Rory to his father Brian. _

Melody Pond-Williams, alias Zucker, had never used a swing set before. Seeing that it was Saturday and the playground at Leadworth Elementary was empty for once (even though she looked the part of an eight-year-old girl, she felt far too old to play when others were watching), she decided there was no time like the present to begin.

She liked swinging: the brush of the air on her cheeks, pushing off with her sneakered feet against the sand, watching the grass sink and the clouds whirl above her. She imagined that if she let go, she could fall right into them as if into a featherbed.

She stood up on the rubber seat, laughing, wanting to feel the wind on every inch of her. She swung high …

… then fell, landing on her hands and knees in the grass.

"Umph! Bloody hell … "

She picked herself up, grimacing at the scratch on the palm of her right hand, more from embarrassment than the trivial pain it gave her. She must have hit a pebble. Madame would have scolded her for being so careless of the weapon that was her body. She brushed the dirt from her jeans and darted a glance around the lawn, the red-brick school building and the plastic jungle gym nearby, checking to see if anyone had witnessed her clumsy fall. To her shame, someone had.

"Are you okay?"

A mousy-haired white boy about her own physical age, wearing too-large khaki shorts and a blue-and-white striped polo shirt, dropped his bicycle on the lawn and came running up to her. Up close, she saw that his eyes were something between blue and gray, almost too wide for his little face, now wider than usual out of concern. Familiar eyes.

"I'm fine," she said brusquely, ignoring the shiver of _déjà vu_ down her spine.

"You hurt your hand," the boy insisted, with a gravity of manner that she found both ridiculous and touching. How sheltered was he, to be so worried about a simple scratch? "It's _bleeding_."

"So?"

"So, what if it gets infected? You've got dirt and stuff all over it."

A reasonable assumption, she had to admit.

"I could help you clean that up," the boy offered, digging a packet of anti-bacterial cloths from one of his capacious pockets.

This time, Melody really had to laugh.

"You carry those things around with you? Seriously?"

Hurt flashed in his eyes, but he shrugged it off with a smile. Something about that gesture and smile made her spine tingle again, but she ignored it.

"It's all about the pockets in my family," he said with a touch of pride, as if quoting someone else. "Plus I have a friend who's always in trouble. She stands on the swings just like you."

"Sounds interesting."

"So do you want this?", meaning the cloths.

"If you insist."

She nodded (mostly, or so she told herself, to get this strange little person off her case), but instead of just handing her the aluminum packet, the boy opened it himself, pocketed the wrapper and picked up her bleeding hand in one of his.

She flinched.

"It won't hurt," he said, misreading her unease about being touched (by a stranger, too, and outside of the martial arts training which for so long had been her only form of contact) with fear of the stinging disinfectant on the cloth.

"Liar." She yanked her hand away. "It always hurts. You think I've never been cut before?"

The astonishment, hurt, anger and – for a moment – _fear_ on the boy's face as he backed away from her brought her to her senses with a jolt as sudden as her fall from the swings. He was not like her; he might see truth and lies very differently from her, just as he saw blood.

"Fine, be like that," he snapped. "I was _trying_ to help."

He started to walk away, holding the cloth crumpled in his hand, but something – whether it was remorse, embarrassment, or that little background tingle of forgotten memories – made her call after him.

"Wait!"

He looked over his shoulder.

"I … I'm sorry," she muttered. "I shouldn't have said that."

"It's okay." He showed her a gap-toothed, contented smile, making her add forgiveness to her many foreign experiences of the day.

"That thing about not hurting? My dad always says it when he's cleaning up one of _my _cuts, or before I get a shot." (The word confused her until she realized he meant a vaccination, not a bullet.) "I know it's not always true, but he says it anyway. It's to make you feel better. Sorry if you got confused."

So she was right. In this boy's world, a lie did not have to be heartbreaking, such as the Doctor telling his companions they could stay with him forever, or telling desperate races he could save them. Or Madame Kovarian calling her "daughter". A lie could be as innocent as a father comforting his child.

_Father … _

The tingle at the back of her mind rose to a roar, and the question came out before she could stop it.

"What's your name?"

"Rory," said the boy, still smiling. "Rory Williams. What's yours?"

It took all her own considerable powers of deception not to throw her arms around him and cry.

She remembered, from the deepest, darkest corners of her human-plus-Time Lord brain: a brilliant conflagration of red hair, a face pale as the moon, a woman's sweet voice.

"_There's a man who's never going to let us down, and not even an army can get in the way. Wherever they take you, Melody, however scared you are, I promise you, you will never be alone. Because this man is your father. His name is Rory Williams, but the people of our world know him as the last Centurion."_

This little boy was her father. His eyes were the eyes she used to see in the mirror thirty years ago, before the space suit, before her first death. She had found him at last - and where her father was, her mother could not be far away.

"I'm Melody," she said, holding out her injured hand.

Instead of shaking it, as the usual greeting goes, Rory carefully wiped the blood and dirt away with his disinfectant, then sealed the cut with a Star Wars bandage from his well-supplied pocket.

She barely felt the sting amid the warmth of his hands. He hadn't lied after all.


	24. Big Girl

Big Girl

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

"_I hope you know, I hope you know  
>that this has nothing to do with you.<br>It's personal: myself and I,  
>we've got some straightening out to do.<br>And I'm gonna miss you like a child misses their blanket,  
>but I've got to get a move on with my life.<br>It's time to be a big girl now  
>and big girls don't cry."<em>

- Fergie, "Big Girls Don't Cry"

Dear Diary,

Today the TARDIS showed me her files on all the Doctor's past companions, and I'm afraid I did not take it well. The Doctor wasn't there, thank goodness; he was making repairs on the lower deck and didn't hear us. I don't want him to know how I feel about this, as it's nothing he can fix and would only make him feel guilty. That man already carries enough guilt to supply Stormcage several times over.

I'm not jealous. That's not the problem. I've done some research on most of these people at Luna and their stories are fascinating: I've always wanted to meet Sarah Jane Smith, for example, exchange munition tips with Ace or ask Romana about Gallifrey. I am truly glad that my husband has made so many extraordinary friends, and truly sorry that so many of them are lost forever. In that sense, Mother Time did get her message through: if I was worried about my husband being lonely before and after me, I'm not worried anymore.

But for me, there never was a 'before', and I seriously doubt there will be an 'after'. It's not fair.

I know that makes me sound like a teenager, but damn it, if a girl can't be immature in her own diary, when can she? Life was never meant to be fair. If I didn't have the brains to learn that by now, I wouldn't deserve my PhD. But it's not fair, and it does hurt, and it will keep on hurting until, and probably after, I explain why.

The Doctor is my life. The North to my compass. He literally defines everything I am. I was conceived to resemble him, raised to know and respect and hate him, trained to kill him … and then I chose to love him. At the time, I thought that choice would free me, but I wonder now if it isn't just a different kind of prison.

After Berlin, I could have started fresh: made new friends, picked a career for its own sake (as opposed to stalking him via history lessons), put the Doctor and my mad fixation on him behind me and bloody well got a life. But I didn't, because this man I killed and saved was (is) as much a part of me as my own blood.

Most days I can live with that, celebrate it even, but on others – I don't mind admitting it to this inanimate and nonjudgmental stack of paper – it terrifies me.

The Doctor is my life, and what am I to him? Oh, he loves me, of course; no less than he loved any of his companions. Since I'm part Time Lady, a daughter of the TARDIS and his first sexual partner in centuries (I think), maybe even more. I have no doubt that he'll be sorry to lose me; in fact, if his reaction to my death is anything like his reaction to losing Rose Tyler to a parallel universe or wiping Donna Noble's memory, my successor won't have an easy time of it. But he will move on from his loss with courage and dignity, I know, and find someone new to share life's miracles with him – just as he always does, as he's been doing all his lives, and all the better. I wouldn't want him any other way.

I only wish I could say the same for me.

Maybe it's not too late. Maybe I should stop this, break this cycle that we've gotten ourselves into: the one where he breaks me out of Stormcage for some glorious adventure, or I escape and vandalize a landmark or something just to get his attention, only to be dumped back in my cell at the end of the day. Maybe I should stay to earn my parole. I hate the place, but maybe it will be worth it, if it means getting out of there for good.

I could go back to Luna, take another shot at archaeology for its own sake. Maybe even teach. I like the idea of being to young people what nobody was to me, someone to show them the fun of learning as well as the discipline. I could go out to digs again, feel the passing of the years at my fingertips the way a time traveller can't. Look up Anita and the Daves; I still owe her a daiquiri for what happened at graduation. Learn to cook. Go shopping. Throw parties. Get my hands on a vortex manipulator, so I can see Amy, Rory and the Doctor on my own terms. Live in a flat by myself, with a real mattress, a door I can lock, no guards and no more bloody bars on the windows.

I could be more than the Doctor's bespoke psychopath. I could be my own woman.

But, dear God, how I'd miss him in the meantime!


	25. Mother To The Woman

Mother To The Woman

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

_Author's Note: This episode contains spoilers for "The Angels Take Manhattan". My apologies for any mathematical confusion regarding the Pond-Williams family's ages._

"The child is father to the man." – William Wordsworth

**New York****, 2012**

River Song held on tightly to her mother's red-nailed hand as they turned from the grave of Rory Williams to the Weeping Angel who had sent him there. It was very quiet among the clipped lawn and orderly headstones; the only sounds to be heard were their own voices and the Doctor's ragged sobs. A distant corner of her mind was worried for him. She had never heard him cry like this before.

"Look after him," said Amy, not breaking eye contact with the Angel. "Be a good girl."

This motherly cliché spoken to a middle-aged ex-con was an old joke between them, but this time, neither of them could laugh. Always guarded about her deepest emotions, even now, Amy was using their own private code to convey a last _I love you._

River's eyes stung. She could not have kept watch over the Angel if she tried. Still, a sense of inevitability kept her strangely calm, almost detached. The last mystery of her childhood was a mystery no longer. She knew, as she had always known, that goodbye was not always goodbye forever.

Amy's last words were for the Doctor, which River considered only fitting. Her hair flickered like flames as she turned away from the Angel.

"Raggedy man … goodbye."

Then she was gone, and River's hands were cold and empty. A new name had been carved onto the headstone … just as she had ordered.

_Rory Arthur Williams_

_and his loving wife_

_Amelia Williams_

**New York****, 1969**

Dying hurt. Melody Pond knew how to fix it, but that didn't make it any easier. She did not understand why the lady from the photograph in her room – she recognized the lady; no one else in the world had hair like that – would shoot her. What had Melody ever done to her? Who was she anyway?

She doubled over, coughing gold dust, bracing against the brick wall of the alley where she was hiding. The gold was too bright. Someone would find her. Madame would find her, and they would put her back in that horrible space suit and make her kill the Doctor, who was a bad man, but why couldn't someone older do it instead –

"Melody?" exclaimed a woman at the end of the alley.

"Are you sure it's - "

"Who else could it be?" She interrupted the man standing behind her. "Melody? Sweetie, please, come out of there."

"Don't be scared," added the man. "We won't hurt you."

Melody tried to run, but her legs collapsed under her, and she fell onto the pavement. She froze like a deer in the headlights as the couple approached her, illuminated by the light from her changing body. They looked ordinary, in their forties or fifties, the man half bald, the woman wearing glasses. Still, fear and fury made her tremble as she recognized the china-doll face, the hazel eyes, the fiery red among the gray.

It was the lady from the photograph.

"You _shot_ me," she accused, struggling to sit up and glare at them. _Never show fear_, Madame had said.

The lady's face crumpled – an expression Melody had only ever seen on her own face in the mirror, never on Madame or any of the soldiers. The lady was crying.

"The space suit scared me," she confessed, leaning into her companion's shoulder. He put an arm around her, watching Melody with a grave kindness as foreign to her as the lady's tears. "I didn't know it was you. If I'd known, I'd never … I'm so sorry, Melody."

The space suit had scared Melody too; that much she could understand. But nobody had ever cried for her before.

"Who … who are you?" Melody whispered. "How do you know my name?"

"I'm your mother," said the lady. "And this is your father. We've been looking for you everywhere."

Smiling, Melody's mother stepped forward and held out her hand, the cerulean polish on her fingernails gleaming in the light. Something about that blue, richer and lovelier than any other color, caught Melody's attention, and in a moment, she knew why.

Madame and her soldiers didn't paint their nails. This couple were civilians.

They were safe.

With one final flare of gold, she reached out with her own small hands to let her mother pull her to her feet.

**New York****, 1999**

Sunflowers blazed beside Amelia Williams' hospital bed, but not even their glory could bring youth to her white hair and withered face. Even her hands, still polished and manicured in defiance of the nurses – golden today, to match the sunflowers – were wrinkled and spotted with age.

"Don't forget," she rasped for the dozenth time, gesturing to the envelope next to the bouquet. It held a street address, scrawled in a shaky, misspelled handwriting that showed just how much the former writer and publisher was losing control.

"Leadworth. England. Promise me you'll go."

"I promise," Melody repeated, squeezing the old woman's hand. "But can't you tell me why?"

"It's my dying wish, young lady," Amy retorted, a hint of the old spark flaring in her hazel eyes. "What other reasons do you need?"

"Don't say that." Melody choked back her tears. "Don't you dare say that. You're not dying. You can't!"

"Can't I?" Something appeared among the wrinkles of her mother's face that might have been a smile. "You make dying sound like a bad thing. I'm just going to find Rory, that's all. He must've been so bored without me, don't you know?"

Melody laughed, and a sob escaped with her laughter.

"I know, Mum, I know … but what about me? What will _I_ do without you?"

"Don't be stupid, Melody." Amy moved her other hand across the blanket, taking her daughter's hand between both of hers in a surprisingly strong grip. "You and me and Rory – we're family. We always find each other, no matter when, no matter where.

Be a good girl, Melody. You'll see me again, I promise."

Amy's hands went limp, and the beeping machines around her bed became suddenly quiet.

Melody Williams bowed her head and cried like a child, feeling the bullet pierce her heart all over again.

**Leadworth, 1999**

Seeing the little red-haired girl run down the street, tugging a blond boy along by his too-large necktie, both of them ignoring her as a complete stranger, jolted Melody to a standstill. She had seen and done many strange things in her lifetimes (some of which, thanks to the persistent Silence, she didn't even remember). Thanks to a drunk driver and an English fog, she was now a thirty-six-year-old white woman in the body of an eight-year-old black child, which was not only strange, but very inconvenient. She knew perfectly well that time was, from a non-linear subjective view point, nothing but a ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. She had even hoped for this.

It still took her breath away.

"Oi!" called Amelia. "What are _you_ lookin' at?"

Rory shrugged apology on his playmate's behalf, making Melody smile – _some things never change, I guess_ – and immediately putting her at ease. After all, these children had raised her and made her who she was. It was about time she repaid them.

"You look like you're having fun," she said. "Can I play?"

Amelia looked her over from head to toe, paused, and nodded, making Melody feel absurdly proud to pass muster.

"I'm Pond. Amelia Pond. This is my Raggedy Doctor – at least, right now he is. His real name's Rory, but don't tell anyone. Alien names are secret, don't you know?"

"Hi," said Rory, waving, with that wry, patient smile his daughter knew so well. "Nice to meet you."

Amelia held out her hand and Melody shook it firmly. Around their joined fingers, she could feel Time swirl like a scattering of gold dust, linking past to present to future. _Every beginning is an ending in disguise, and vice versa. The child is mother to the woman. Oh, Amy, you were right: we'll always find each other. Mother, Father, I love you so much. I love you more than you'll ever know._

"I like your nails," said Amelia, smiling at the crimson paint on Melody's coffee-colored fingers.

"Thanks. I can show you how to paint them. But right now – let's _run!_"

They hurtled down the street, shrieking and giggling, just three children on a summer afternoon. Never dreaming how very, very far they would have to run someday, just to run back to each other.


	26. Passionate

Passionate

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

Copyright: BBC

_Paris, 1875_

The Opéra Comique was sparkling tonight, lit by golden chandeliers which picked up the jewels of countless wealthy spectators. Tiered boxes ringed the hall like layers of a wedding cake, filled with plush velvet seats the color of raspberry jam. Onstage, Don José was cradling Carmen's dying body, the red rose in her hair blazing red as her blood, her soprano and his tenor soaring high above the crowd. It was magnificent, but the Time Lord in Box Five had seen and heard it all before – performed in it. The only thing he cared to see tonight was Clara Oswald, sitting next to him in a blue velvet gown and a rising state of … anger?

He smiled to himself. Once again, she had managed to surprise him.

"You know," he whispered into her ear, "Most people would be crying by this point."

"Well, not me!"

Her brown eyes glittered dangerously as she watched the stage; her round cheeks turned pink. Her hands, which had been twisting the program all through the performance, began slowly and methodically tearing it to shreds.

"That total _arse,_" she hissed through gritted teeth. "Did he seriously just – just _stab_ her and then try to apologize?"

"Well, at least he's trying," the Doctor lightly pointed out. "Which is more than we can say for some criminals we've met, eh?"

"Don't even joke!"

She smacked his knee, making a noise so loud that the fur-coated, elderly lady in front of them turned back to glare through her pince-nez. Shamefaced, Clara tucked both hands into her lap, remaining quiet until the curtain fell. As soon as the cast came back onstage though, followed by a roar of whistles and applause, she brushed the shreds of the program from her lap, jumped to her feet, seized the Doctor's hand and began tugging him toward the exit. As usual, despite his longer legs, he had to make an effort to keep up.

"See, this – this – is why I hate opera," she said, slightly breathless, as they dodged and elbowed their way down the crowded hall. "Thanks for dragging me here, Doctor. Hope you're happy now."

"As a matter of fact, I am! And you don't _really_ hate the opera."

"Oh yes, I do!"

"Oh no, you don't."

She whirled to face him, a little softened despite herself by the radiant, boyish smile on her companion's face.

"Do so!" she insisted, playfully this time.

"Do not." He tapped her nose. "You liked Carmen, admit it. Why else would you care so much about what happens to her?"

She blushed.

"I didn't – she's just – oh, shut up!"

He threw his head back and let out a whoop of laughter, attracting smiles and curious glances from about a dozen passers-by.

"Please excuse him," Clara said sweetly, batting her eyelashes and taking hold of the Doctor's elbow. "Had a bit too much of … y'know … the Green Fairy."

Several people recoiled, including the old lady from before.

"I do _not_ drink absinthe!" he retorted in a whisper as they climbed down the staircase.

/

Outside the building, it was raining. Paris shone with light from the new gas lamps, reflected into glowing puddles on the street. The air smelled of wet stone and, faintly, of spring growth in the trees and gardens. Thanking his long-lost ancestors for their technology, the Doctor pulled an umbrella from the pocket of his tailcoat and opened it, with a flourish, over Clara's upturned face.

She smiled and held one hand out to catch the rain, keeping the other tucked beneath his arm. The lamplight was reflected in her brown eyes and the curves of her glossy hair. He caught his breath.

"You'd make a fantastic Carmen, you know," he said.

She turned away, dark hair falling to hide her face. His brain went into overdrive – was she offended? Angry with him? Would she get the wrong idea? What _was_ the wrong idea, come to think of it? – but just as he was about to apologize, she looked back up at him with a smirk and rolled her eyes.

"Me? Hmph! If I pulled a knife on every silly cow I've had to work with – "

"No need to finish that thought. It's quite alarming."

She shoved him lightly, but he pretended to stagger, just to catch some raindrops on his overheated face.

"And I hope I'd have more sense than to juggle two blokes at once."

"I hope so too."

She raised an eyebrow at that, but did not comment.

Suddenly, following an impulse he could not quite explain, the Doctor stopped in his tracks and turned her around to face him, his green eyes gazing deep into her dark ones. The TARDIS, only a few more steps away, hummed a solemn note inside his head.

"What I love about opera," he said, "About your entire species, come that … is passion. Love and sorrow, jealousy and rage. Hold on to your emotions, Clara Oswald. Hold on to them, even when they hurt like hell and all you want is for them to go away. It's passion, in all its forms, that reminds us we're alive."

Shadowed by the umbrella, her face was impossible to read. She gazed up at him for a long, silent moment, both her hands resting on his forearms, ignoring the puddle which slowly soaked the hem of her skirt.

"Oi, you and your mood swings," she huffed, breaking away with a shake of her head. "Enough to give a girl whiplash, you are."

"Why be dull?" he retorted, flinging his hands wide, letting the umbrella scatter water all over both of them.

She squealed and made a beeline for the TARDIS, but not as quickly as she might have – giving him plenty of time cut in front of her, open the doors, and bow to her with an elaborate sweep of his arm.

Humming Carmen's _Habanera_ under his breath, he followed her inside.


	27. Cover

Cover

By Laura Schiller

Based on: Doctor Who

"Oh, you – look – _smashing!_" exclaimed the Doctor, whirling around and throwing up his hands. "That fabric glows in the dark, you know. Er, not like you'll need it. I only meant that there'll be plenty of … light … in Vegas … "

He blushed and trailed off, his pale green eyes glowed with admiration, and Clara couldn't quite meet his eyes as she smoothed the skirt of the V-necked silver gown that had earned his compliment. She was glad he liked it, but this was not the reaction she had been hoping for.

"Thanks," she said briskly, turning away to check a small red purse she carried. "Let's see. Cash? Check. Makeup? Check. Pepper spray? Check."

"There will be no need for pepper spray, Clara. Not while I'm around."

"Still. Better safe than sorry, eh?"

They were going to Vegas, and she had raided the TARDIS wardrobe with every intention of fitting in among the party people; something about the Doctor's gaze, however, made her wish she had chosen something else. Something with longer skirts and a higher neckline, perhaps.

Before Akhaten, she would have flirted back openly; _You're not half bad yourself_, she might have said, and it was true, his tuxedo, top hat and bow tie did have an undeniable charm. Before Akhaten – after she'd gtten over thinking of him as a mad monk – she'd been halfway to falling for him, this brilliant, adorable alien who would save a girl's soul from the Wi-Fi and then leave Jammy Dodgers by her had called his TARDIS a "snog box", implying none too subtly that she wanted it to be one.

But that was before. She knew better now.

Looking into his face, flushed and happy and looking no older than twenty-five, she knew that his appearance was deceptive. This was a man who had lived over a thousand years and lost more than most people could even understand. This was a man so old that his memories could feed a millenia-old living star.

He was a grandfather … or, at least, he had been once.

_Perhaps,_ she thought ironically, _it helps that he dresses like one_.

"I think I'll get a shawl," she said casually, folding her bare arms. "Or a jacket. Might be colder out there than it looks."

She'd found a nice military jacket among those endless shelves. That should serve to cover her up.

"Besides, I don't want to embarrass my chaperone, do I? It'll be like going to Vegas with, with … Professor Dumbledore. Or Master Yoda."

The Doctor let out a huff of indignation as she passed him on the way to the door.

_Message received … I hope._


End file.
